Marianne Wesson

This book is so well-written that it even makes the highly technical concept of personal jurisdiction understandable to readers who aren’t lawyers. Unless you’re a lawyer, you probably won’t immediately grasp just how great that accomplishment is; but anyone who has ever had to struggle with Pennoyer v. Neff in law school was immediately awestruck after reading that sentence.

Kidding aside, Marianne Wesson truly is extraordinarily gifted at writing about complex legal issues in a way show more that makes them understandable to the law reader. She chooses as her subject the intersection of pornography and the First Amendment, which requires that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” As absolute as those words appear to be, they have never been interpreted by the courts as being absolute; language that incites violence can be banned, as can language that slanders or libels another person; and, of most relevance to this book, so can language that is simply and wholly pornographic in nature, with no redeeming social value. The problem is defining “pornography”; as Justice Potter Stewart once said, in essence, “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.”

In the case that comes to Boulder, Colorado lawyer Lucinda Hayes, there would seem to be little doubt that the child pornography snuff film at issue in her case is unquestionably pornographic. Certainly everyone who views it finds it so, and most are haunted by its repellent images for years, if not for a lifetime. One particular individual who viewed the film over and over and over again was a young schizophrenic loner who decided to act it out for himself, gruesomely torturing, sexually abusing and finally, mercifully, killing a young girl. By the time the book opens, he has been tried and convicted and is in a prison for the criminally insane.

But the girl’s mother is not satisfied with that result. She asks Hayes to sue the producer of the film. Hayes agrees to undertake the novel civil litigation, arguing that the film is no different from any other product that harms someone: the producer should be liable for the damages that were reasonably foreseeable. Arrayed against her is a phalanx of the film and television industries’ most highly paid and, it must be said, brilliant legal minds, men – and they are invariably men – who know everything there is to know about First Amendment jurisprudence. They are heavily funded and have manpower to burn, while Hayes is virtually on her own, reliant on friends, her only partner, and a feminist professor from the local law school (who bears a striking resemblance to Catherine McKinnon, the well-known legal scholar from the University of Michigan who has fulminated against pornography for years).

The real fascination of this book is in watching the case develop over time, as the lawyers develop their theories. Wesson provides real insight into how lawyers think, how arguments grow, how the law develops. It’s all there: the investigation, the lucky break, the midnight brief writing, and most of all, the emotional consequences of taking on a case that exposes the lawyer to the ultimate in ugliness and greed.

If that’s not enough for the average reader, Wesson also throws in a real mystery: why is the mother of the slaughtered child so cool, so calm? Her Zen-like presence infuses the book with a sort of queasiness, an unanswered question: what does she have up her sleeve? Surely she doesn’t believe that money alone will salve her spirit for the loss of her daughter? The answers to these questions lead to a powerful denouement as the case proceeds inexorably to verdict.

This is one of the best mysteries of 2004. It is surprising that this comes from a university press, rather than a major publisher; with luck, that will not make it difficult to find, for it deserves a large and appreciative audience.

Originally published in The Drood Review of Mystery, Volume 24, No. 5, pp. 4-5 (Sept/Oct 2004) show less

This is lawyer Marianne Wesson's first novel and I think she's on to a good thing. Cinda Hayes leaves the Boulder County district attorney's office to head up the Rape Crisis Center but she's asked to take on a death row appeal case. Jason Smiley is on death row for a rape and murder and now she must see if she can find a hole in the case. As I think back on this book, there are lots of holes in the plot and some of the writing is less than practiced. BUT, I was compelled from the first word show more to the last - warts and all. I think this is the case where book number two will be really really good and I plan to find out the minute it's released. show less