OK, here’s the thing: I’ve read Justice Hall four or five times by now, and this last time through, like the previous time and I think the time before that, I absolutely could not remember who the Bad Guy was. The book fairly quickly narrows the options down to two totally uninteresting minor characters, Sidney Darling and Ivo Hughenfort. And I couldn’t remember which one it was. And, just like the last time I had read the book and (if I remember correctly) the time before, I could not have cared less.
Now, one might think that it would be a Bad Thing for a mystery novel to, ultimately, come down to which of two totally uninteresting minor characters is the villain, and for the reader not to care which it is, and not to remember afterwards. If that’s true, then Justice Hall is not, technically, a mystery novel. Which I think is accurate. I don’t hang around in mystery-maven circles, so I don’t know if there is a mystery-vs-adventure genre catfight analogous to the science-fiction-vs-fantasy one. But then, there isn’t an Adventure section of the bookstore (or library). And I’m not sure that Justice Hall is an adventure story, properly speaking, anyway. Is it more like The Reader is Warned or more like The Bourne Identity? Is it more like Hot Money or more like The Happy Highwayman? Is it more like Dutch Leonard or Patricia Cornwell? Is it a thriller? Is it a crime novel? Is it a historical novel?
No, really, what is it? Gentle Readers, what are the genres (or subgenres) here, and how can we find them useful?
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.