John Morgan Wilson, Rhapsody in Blood

Rhapsody in Blood

John Morgan Wilson

St. Martin's, Mar 2006, $24.95, 288 pp.

ISBN: 0312341474

Once Benjamin Justice was revered as a fine journalist who deservedly won a Pulitzer for his articles on nursing his lover while his beloved was dying from AIDS. When it was substantiated that Ben fabricated his story, he became despised and black balled. Sixteen years later, the only person to return a Pulitzer solves mysteries instead of writing articles.

In 1956 in Haunted Springs on the Ides of March, Eternal Springs Hotel handyman Ed Jones allegedly killed film star, Rebecca Fox; Jones was immediately lynched. Twenty-five years later on the same day in the same room, Rebecca's daughter Brandy committed suicide. Author Richard Pearlman writes a book on Rebecca's death, but his DNA testing of semen found on the victim proves not to be from Jones. A movie A Murder in Eternal Springs is about to be made at the site of the tragedies, so LA Times reporter Alexandra Templeton convinces her friend Ben to accompany her as she covers the event. Also there is despised viper tabloid reporter Toni Pebbles, who plans to expose the secrets of someone involved in the project, but is killed before she can do so. With Templeton encouraging him, Ben investigates four murders five decades apart.

People will sympathize with Benjamin Justice, who is HIV positive and not a bad person, though he made a terrible mistake sixteen years ago under extenuating circumstances. He has accepted his fall from grace gracefully, and since has tried to do the right thing even solving numerous homicides along the way. His latest caper is a complex tale that has its roots in the past as Benjamin seeks what happened in 1956, 1981, and now. RHAPSODY IN BLOOD is John Morgan Wilson meting out justice for the dead as only he can.