It’s not that
I’ve discovered a new author, hardly. William Deverell has an impressive body
of work that I’ve stumbled into, fortunately. In short, Trial of Passion is a crime novel
having to do with an alleged date rape by Jonathan O’Donnell, the acting dean
of the law school in Vancouver, Canada, the victim being one of his students,
23-year-old Kimberley Martin. But far more than being a crime novel, it’s a
love story, of love painfully lost and then found again. The protagonist is the
erudite Arthur Beauchamp, a criminal defense trial attorney who at 62 years
old, had suddenly gone into retirement and unofficially separated from his very
sexually active wife, although not active with him since Beauchamp has been
impotent for the last many years. Arthur buys a place on an island which is a
short float plane ride from Vancouver, and it is only with great reluctance
that he allows himself to be pulled back for one more case, to defend
O’Donnnell against the charges against him.
There is a lot
to this story, and the writing draws favorable comparisons to the literary and
learned text of Ken Bruen, to the descriptive power of James Lee Burke, and the
character development of Louise Penny. He also brings humor to his writing that
I can’t quite compare to anyone else. The courtroom drama is incredible, and the drama approaches John Grisham at his best. That is mighty praise and even before
completing Trial of Passion, I
acquired two more of his novels. Deverell beautifully supports and contrasts
his love themes with his ancillary characters, including some of the others
that have fled to the island such as Margaret Blake, Beauchamp’s neighbor, and
the construction crew he hires, Stoney and Dog. It’s also a story of
alcoholism, Beauchamp’s struggle to continue his nine years of sobriety and the
failure of his friend, George, to do so. In the end, it’s a story about life
and the vicissitudes well all face.
After only one
book, I can’t elevate Deverell to my list of “power authors,” but if his other
books live up to this one, that’s where he belongs.
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