What do you think?
Rate this book
Ben Kincaid #4
Perfect Justice
A young Vietnamese immigrant is brutally slaughtered by a crossbow. The prime suspect is a ruthless member of a white supremacy group. When attorney Ben Kincaid reluctantly agrees to confer with the presumed murderer, he encounters a chilling an innocent man has been cast as a scapegoat. To rebalance the scales of justice, Ben chooses to represent the accused man--thereby placing both attorney and client at the explosive center of a community torn apart by racism and violence.
But the real fireworks will go off in court--in an incendiary murder trial with more twists than a dustbowl tornado. . . .
WINNER OF THE OKLAHOMA BOOK AWARD
But the real fireworks will go off in court--in an incendiary murder trial with more twists than a dustbowl tornado. . . .
WINNER OF THE OKLAHOMA BOOK AWARD
Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
397 people are currently reading
477 people want to read
About the author
William Bernhardt
97 books514 followersWilliam Bernhardt is the author of over sixty books, including the bestselling Daniel Pike and Ben Kincaid legal thrillers, the historical novels Challengers of the Dust and Nemesis, three books of poetry, and the ten Red Sneaker books on fiction writing.
In addition, Bernhardt founded the Red Sneaker Writers Center to mentor aspiring writers. The Center hosts an annual writers conference (WriterCon), small-group seminars, a monthly newsletter, and a bi-weekly podcast. More than three dozen of Bernhardt’s students have subsequently published with major houses. He is also the owner of Balkan Press, which publishes poetry and fiction as well as the literary journal Conclave.
Bernhardt has received the Southern Writers Guild’s Gold Medal Award, the Royden B. Davis Distinguished Author Award (University of Pennsylvania) and the H. Louise Cobb Distinguished Author Award (Oklahoma State), which is given "in recognition of an outstanding body of work that has profoundly influenced the way in which we understand ourselves and American society at large." He has been nominated for the Oklahoma Book Award eighteen times in three different categories, and has won the award twice. Library Journal called him “the master of the courtroom drama.” The Vancouver Sun called him “the American equivalent of P.G. Wodehouse and John Mortimer.”
In addition to his novels and poetry, he has written plays, a musical (book and score), humor, children stories, biography, and puzzles. He has edited two anthologies (Legal Briefs and Natural Suspect) as fundraisers for The Nature Conservancy and the Children’s Legal Defense Fund. OSU named him “Oklahoma’s Renaissance Man.”
In his spare time, he has enjoyed surfing, digging for dinosaurs, trekking through the Himalayas, paragliding, scuba diving, caving, zip-lining over the canopy of the Costa Rican rain forest, and jumping out of an airplane at 10,000 feet. In 2013, he became a Jeopardy! champion winning over $20,000.
When Bernhardt delivered the keynote address at the San Francisco Writers Conference, chairman Michael Larsen noted that in addition to penning novels, Bernhardt can “write a sonnet, play a sonata, plant a garden, try a lawsuit, teach a class, cook a gourmet meal, beat you at Scrabble, and work the New York Times crossword in under five minutes.”
In addition, Bernhardt founded the Red Sneaker Writers Center to mentor aspiring writers. The Center hosts an annual writers conference (WriterCon), small-group seminars, a monthly newsletter, and a bi-weekly podcast. More than three dozen of Bernhardt’s students have subsequently published with major houses. He is also the owner of Balkan Press, which publishes poetry and fiction as well as the literary journal Conclave.
Bernhardt has received the Southern Writers Guild’s Gold Medal Award, the Royden B. Davis Distinguished Author Award (University of Pennsylvania) and the H. Louise Cobb Distinguished Author Award (Oklahoma State), which is given "in recognition of an outstanding body of work that has profoundly influenced the way in which we understand ourselves and American society at large." He has been nominated for the Oklahoma Book Award eighteen times in three different categories, and has won the award twice. Library Journal called him “the master of the courtroom drama.” The Vancouver Sun called him “the American equivalent of P.G. Wodehouse and John Mortimer.”
In addition to his novels and poetry, he has written plays, a musical (book and score), humor, children stories, biography, and puzzles. He has edited two anthologies (Legal Briefs and Natural Suspect) as fundraisers for The Nature Conservancy and the Children’s Legal Defense Fund. OSU named him “Oklahoma’s Renaissance Man.”
In his spare time, he has enjoyed surfing, digging for dinosaurs, trekking through the Himalayas, paragliding, scuba diving, caving, zip-lining over the canopy of the Costa Rican rain forest, and jumping out of an airplane at 10,000 feet. In 2013, he became a Jeopardy! champion winning over $20,000.
When Bernhardt delivered the keynote address at the San Francisco Writers Conference, chairman Michael Larsen noted that in addition to penning novels, Bernhardt can “write a sonnet, play a sonata, plant a garden, try a lawsuit, teach a class, cook a gourmet meal, beat you at Scrabble, and work the New York Times crossword in under five minutes.”
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
May 31, 2023
Ben Kincaid, Oklahoma lawyer, defends a White Nationalist while on his vacation! The murder victim is from a Vietnamese refugee family that had settled in Oklahoma after the end of the war.
This particular defense did not make Ben very popular with the townsfolk. An aggregating theme in the book was Ben's brief affair with the town leader of an anti-hate group.
The accused turned out not to be the real perp, but he needed to keep a secret...which, if divulged, would have lead to what actually happened.
Easy writing style and a comprehensible but compelling story, made this a good read.
This particular defense did not make Ben very popular with the townsfolk. An aggregating theme in the book was Ben's brief affair with the town leader of an anti-hate group.
The accused turned out not to be the real perp, but he needed to keep a secret...which, if divulged, would have lead to what actually happened.
Easy writing style and a comprehensible but compelling story, made this a good read.
October 21, 2011
I read this book while waiting at the hospital for my sister to get out of surgery (it was a long surgery!). It was an easy read, and a good distraction with an engaging, but not really believable, storyline. The characters were not very well-developed, coming across as stereotypical and two-dimensional. I felt like the female characters, and the one baby (there were actually two babies, but the one was dead so I'm not counting it), were based on the author's unrealistic ideas of what a woman or a baby is. The baby I'm referring to is the DA's daughter that he babysits while on the job. The age of the baby wasn't clear, as it needed a bottle and a playpen yet could talk like a two-year-old. And the female attorney that the main character hooks up with seemed pretty immature and conniving. She conned him into having sex with her (thankfully it didn't go into a lot of detail), but then got mad at him when he didn't pay attention to her like she wanted, and used the sex episode against him. It seemed to me that if he had been the one asking for the sex, it would have made more sense for her to feel unloved when he was too preoccupied for it later. The other female character, Christine, was his main legal assistant, and she ditched him at the beginning and didn't show up again until the end, becoming his friend once again. That part was also pretty cheesy and one-dimensional to me. Maybe those are minor details, but they made it come across to me like a cheesy detective TV series with their unbelievable but engaging plots and storylines. The ending seemed a bit far-fetched, and he left loose threads hanging. Aside from all my criticicisms, however, I did keep reading til I found out how it ended, so I must have liked it at least a little.
September 30, 2020
Ben Kincaid is trying to take a vacation. A little camping, some fishing....
Instead, he finds himself being drafted into defending the life of a member of a White Supremacist hate group, accused of killing a member of the local Vietnamese community.
Racial tensions run high - riots and parades, firebombings and drive by shootings.
No, this isn't 2020 - it's 1993 and the same stuff we see today was happening 25+ years ago in this small, southern town.
Along the way, Kincaid finds himself being defended by the Aryan group, and hated and reviled by a Hatewatch group, who is out to prevent the ongoing attacks on minorities. And falling in love with the head of the local Hatewatch group, who is conflicted on how she feels.
It has been 20+ years since I last read a Ben Kincaid novel - when I first discovered the series, I was looking for something to fill the void that was left between John Grisham publications. Grisham (in those days) didnt have a regular character; Bernhardt did. And a rather amusing one at that. So, I picked and binged my way through the first 3 books. (The 3rd one, though, was reading during at time when I was running at 103 fever. So, I had to go back and re-read it in 1999, to make sure I understood the plot and didnt hallucinate some of what I remembered. #KidsDontFeverAndRead)
But, along the way, I found better series - Grisham was getting faster, Crighton was a new author I discovered, and then there was the year I spent reading Ed McBain. And before I knew it - I was found myself with a partner in crime, who was encouraging me to read Cornwell and Evanovich. So, the Kincaid series found itself getting lower and lower on the TBR pile.
And then 2020.
The world shuts down- people are told to stay inside. And so I start to binge read - but read those series that I have let slide and get assigned to the 'someday" pile. Well, today is someday and I enjoyed this book!!!
Instead, he finds himself being drafted into defending the life of a member of a White Supremacist hate group, accused of killing a member of the local Vietnamese community.
Racial tensions run high - riots and parades, firebombings and drive by shootings.
No, this isn't 2020 - it's 1993 and the same stuff we see today was happening 25+ years ago in this small, southern town.
Along the way, Kincaid finds himself being defended by the Aryan group, and hated and reviled by a Hatewatch group, who is out to prevent the ongoing attacks on minorities. And falling in love with the head of the local Hatewatch group, who is conflicted on how she feels.
It has been 20+ years since I last read a Ben Kincaid novel - when I first discovered the series, I was looking for something to fill the void that was left between John Grisham publications. Grisham (in those days) didnt have a regular character; Bernhardt did. And a rather amusing one at that. So, I picked and binged my way through the first 3 books. (The 3rd one, though, was reading during at time when I was running at 103 fever. So, I had to go back and re-read it in 1999, to make sure I understood the plot and didnt hallucinate some of what I remembered. #KidsDontFeverAndRead)
But, along the way, I found better series - Grisham was getting faster, Crighton was a new author I discovered, and then there was the year I spent reading Ed McBain. And before I knew it - I was found myself with a partner in crime, who was encouraging me to read Cornwell and Evanovich. So, the Kincaid series found itself getting lower and lower on the TBR pile.
And then 2020.
The world shuts down- people are told to stay inside. And so I start to binge read - but read those series that I have let slide and get assigned to the 'someday" pile. Well, today is someday and I enjoyed this book!!!
July 19, 2020
Another great story in the Ben Kincaid series. Apparently Ben can’t even go on vacation without getting into a criminal case, But Ben believes his slogans to be innocent, even though the client whines assist in his own defense. Hate groups, a small town, and a new cast of characters along with old favorites make this story both interesting and suspenseful. As usual, there were twists and turns in the case. If I’m being honest, I suspected the real killer, but had no evidence though the clues were there. I’m really enjoying this series and am looking forward to the next book.
June 2, 2022
Okay, I admit, the first four Justice books came on one tape, ergo the same finish date. I will admit that I did not listen to Dead Justice, not because I didn't want to, but because I fell asleep. That had nothing to do with the book, just the fact I was tired. William Bernhardt is an acquaintance and I attended several of his workshops and conferences. He helped me to learn a lot and I appreciate his work.
January 25, 2022
Just OK
This was good but it was my least favorite Ben Kincaid novel so far. All the details came together in the end, but the different storylines felt contrived making the entirety less believable. I will continue to read this series nonetheless as I like the characters. Four stars for the writing and suspense; 2 stars for the storlines.
This was good but it was my least favorite Ben Kincaid novel so far. All the details came together in the end, but the different storylines felt contrived making the entirety less believable. I will continue to read this series nonetheless as I like the characters. Four stars for the writing and suspense; 2 stars for the storlines.
July 2, 2022
Beat up and in love
I got so tired of Ben doing something stupid, then getting beat up as a result. Pining over a lost love for years, then tumbles quickly for one, then almost admits his love for another but was saved by a fire. Too many fires of all kinds in this book. I will give this series a rest for a while.
I got so tired of Ben doing something stupid, then getting beat up as a result. Pining over a lost love for years, then tumbles quickly for one, then almost admits his love for another but was saved by a fire. Too many fires of all kinds in this book. I will give this series a rest for a while.
April 29, 2023
I can’t quite figure out what doesn’t work well for me in this series. It mat just be the jerky quality of the narration, but I think I like my protagonist to actually have a brain, which Ben has so far been able to demonstrate, and the supporting characters are just a little too slapstick. I’m going to give this one more shot, just in case, but I’m not optimistic.
June 2, 2023
3.5 stars. Good addition to the Ben Kincaid series but it lacked the humor of the previous books. This dealt with racism so that's probably why the humor was left out. Ben and his co-workers are the type of people I would want to represent me if I ever was on trial. I look forward to reading the next book in this series.
October 24, 2023
Continuing saga of a young atty. this time, while on a camping trip, he is persuaded to defend a member of a extreme white nationalist group accused of murder. The hard part is that the defendant while not talk and the group he is a member of has turned against him.
Very well written and very entertaining!
Very well written and very entertaining!
December 2, 2019
Bernhardt is good, but I don’t like some of his style. Telling early in the book that secrets are held, then not revealing until the end seems cheap, to me. I don’t like that way of showing a story.
I’ll try more Bernhardt sometime.
I’ll try more Bernhardt sometime.
June 10, 2023
Another great story, my only complaint was the last 10% of the book. I won’t spoil the story, but, the unbelievable events were a little far fetched. Otherwise, what I’ve come to suspect from the author will keep me reading more of Ben Kincaid’s cases.
June 11, 2023
1st book by William Bernhardt-not sure if I liked it or not. Just didn’t seem to connect with the characters and did notice at one time that it picked up and was getting better. Didn’t hate it and didn’t love it. But I did finish I it!
October 24, 2017
I read #4 first as it is what they had at my library and it is great. One of the best courtroom/solve the crime books I have read. Ben Kencaid and is cast are awesome.
December 22, 2017
I’d give 3.5 stars if I could. Maybe even 3.75, just not 4. A good read and continued character development in the series.
July 1, 2018
I love courtroom dramas so I read a lot of Bernhardt. This one however was not my favorite.
December 18, 2019
Read in 2001
March 10, 2020
Wish there was an ending.
Read
September 9, 2020Very good
May 22, 2021
An easy read, some graphic violence, but overall quite entertaining.
A very interesting twist in the central storyline - kind of "To kill a Mockingbird" with a difference!
A very interesting twist in the central storyline - kind of "To kill a Mockingbird" with a difference!
June 24, 2021
Very good. Fewer swear words.
The language is cleaner than his last two books. The lord's name is not taken in vain as much. I like his stories.
The language is cleaner than his last two books. The lord's name is not taken in vain as much. I like his stories.
October 14, 2022
What a page-turner! I am enjoying this series.
December 28, 2022
The subject matter was a downer. I thought the story construction was a mess. My least favorite in this series!
June 3, 2023
We all know that when the lead character in a mstery series takes a vacation, he won't get very much rest. This series entry finds Ben Kincaid defending a member of a white supremacist group who is accused of killing a member of the local Vietnamese community.
This is the fourth book in the series. I will eventually come back for the fifth. Like its predecessors, this was a fun and engrossing read, though it could have been better if the characters were more complex and fully developped.
This is the fourth book in the series. I will eventually come back for the fifth. Like its predecessors, this was a fun and engrossing read, though it could have been better if the characters were more complex and fully developped.
October 26, 2023
First book I have read by this author. Written 30 years ago.
Story was well written and the ending surprised me which was fine.
Story was well written and the ending surprised me which was fine.
March 1, 2024
A fantastic, thrilling, and suspense filled story that made it hard to put down. Great cast of characters and a surprise ending. This is the best yet in the Ben Kincaid series.
February 6, 2017
Didnt enjoy this one as much a sthe other three and almost gave up reading it. I struggled a lot with the ASP and following that but I ket going and I am glad I did ended up being a great twist at the end.
Symopis: While vacationing in the Ouachita Mountains, Ben becomes embroiled in volatile small-town politics and a case of homicide fueled by hate. The crime: the brutal murder by a crossbow of a young Vietnamese immigrant. The defendant: Donald Vick, a remorseless youth and active member of the Anglo Saxon Patrol(ASP), a local white supremacy group. Though revolted by the killing, Ben believes in Donald Vick's right to a fair trial and agrees to represent him. Soon he also begins to believe in Vick's innocence. Yet before the trial begins, his client suddenly - and adamantly - decides to plead guilty. As members of the Vietnamese community plot to fight fire with fire, Ben frantically searches for the truth. When he infiltrates an isolated ASP camp in the woods, he discovers that what appears to be just another monstrous hate crime could be something else entirely... Perfect Justice is a whirlwind novel of suspense that addresses some of the most controversial issues of our time. William Bernhardt paints a riveting portrait of a town torn apart by xenophobia, racism, and violence. With mounting suspense, his anatomy of an incendiary courtroom trial culminates in serpentine twists and sizzling revelations.
Symopis: While vacationing in the Ouachita Mountains, Ben becomes embroiled in volatile small-town politics and a case of homicide fueled by hate. The crime: the brutal murder by a crossbow of a young Vietnamese immigrant. The defendant: Donald Vick, a remorseless youth and active member of the Anglo Saxon Patrol(ASP), a local white supremacy group. Though revolted by the killing, Ben believes in Donald Vick's right to a fair trial and agrees to represent him. Soon he also begins to believe in Vick's innocence. Yet before the trial begins, his client suddenly - and adamantly - decides to plead guilty. As members of the Vietnamese community plot to fight fire with fire, Ben frantically searches for the truth. When he infiltrates an isolated ASP camp in the woods, he discovers that what appears to be just another monstrous hate crime could be something else entirely... Perfect Justice is a whirlwind novel of suspense that addresses some of the most controversial issues of our time. William Bernhardt paints a riveting portrait of a town torn apart by xenophobia, racism, and violence. With mounting suspense, his anatomy of an incendiary courtroom trial culminates in serpentine twists and sizzling revelations.
October 14, 2013
With Perfect Justice, William Bernhardt, takes his writing to the next level. There is so much tension in this story that it is impossible not to read it straight through to the end to find out how he is going to resolve the complex plot and deal with the collection of challenging characters in the final 50 pages. Ben Kincaid is back and displays more dimensions than in any of the prior books. The central themes of intolerance, hate and revenge are stirred expertly and create a mixture that is both volatile and heart-rending. Characters from previous novels, including the amazing Christina, Mike, Jones, and Loving, return and share more of their personalities and points of view in this tight story. Christina holds her own with Ben, even when his high ideals threaten their friendship, when he agrees to defend a member of a right-wing hate group. Unfortunately, Ben senses something in the man that Christina never sees, that he is less guilty of the crime and less indoctrinated into the hate group than he appears to be on the surface. The love story woven into the story is appropriate and believable and gives us a chance to feel some of Ben's continuing grief at the loss of Ellen years before. This is more than a thriller. The subtitle "a novel of suspense" is very apt here; as the ending, while very surprising, is discoverable by those paying attention throughout the progression of the story. I look forward to reading the books that follow in this series.
July 26, 2012
The fourth entry in the Ben Kincaid series, and one that I struggled with. It's a quick, easy read, but the controversial topic of racism is not handled well, the plot wanders and, at times, doesn't make a lot of sense.
Ben and his assistant, Christine are camping in the Ouachita Mountains when a local court appointed attorney finds Ben and asks him to help on a murder trial, since he has no experience with murder trials. Ben agrees, and Christine, finding out that this is related to a hate crime refuses to help Ben. Following the usual course of William Bernhardt's books, Ben finds himself in trouble, overcomes insurmountable obstacles, displays incredible courage and wins the case by finding the real culprit.
I find the plot confusing. I wasn't sure why the AngloSaxon Patrol (ASP) was in town; were they called in by the town, or did they come on their own. I could guess at the relationship between the mysterious girl and the Vietnamese community, but that whole sub-arc felt very out of place.Christine's reason for not helping Ben was never fully explained, and since Ben was doing more to help the Vietnamese community than the ASP, it is unclear wht her motives for staying out of the fray were. It did open up the story to allow Ben to fall in love, but still ....
I've read most of the books in this series, and am re-reading them again, in order. This seems to be the weakest I've read. It won't stop me from reading the others, though. I still think that it's a great series.
Ben and his assistant, Christine are camping in the Ouachita Mountains when a local court appointed attorney finds Ben and asks him to help on a murder trial, since he has no experience with murder trials. Ben agrees, and Christine, finding out that this is related to a hate crime refuses to help Ben. Following the usual course of William Bernhardt's books, Ben finds himself in trouble, overcomes insurmountable obstacles, displays incredible courage and wins the case by finding the real culprit.
I find the plot confusing. I wasn't sure why the AngloSaxon Patrol (ASP) was in town; were they called in by the town, or did they come on their own. I could guess at the relationship between the mysterious girl and the Vietnamese community, but that whole sub-arc felt very out of place.Christine's reason for not helping Ben was never fully explained, and since Ben was doing more to help the Vietnamese community than the ASP, it is unclear wht her motives for staying out of the fray were. It did open up the story to allow Ben to fall in love, but still ....
I've read most of the books in this series, and am re-reading them again, in order. This seems to be the weakest I've read. It won't stop me from reading the others, though. I still think that it's a great series.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews