THE HANGING JUDGE by Michael Ponsor

This legal thriller is told from the unique perspective of the Federal court judge presiding over the first death penalty case in Massachusetts in more than fifty years. The moral story here is highlighted by an occasional chapter dedicated to the telling of a true story of an 1806 hanging that was reversed two hundred years later.

A drive by shooting is at the root of the present day case; a Hispanic drug dealer and an innocent bystander are killed, and a sharp cop ends up nabbing the getaway driver who gives up a name, Moon Hudson, as the shooter. Moon is a family man, married with a baby, but also has a past that the jury will never hear about. The state’s case hinges on the word of a gangbanger who has agreed to testify in exchange for a lighter sentence, and Moon’s life hangs in the balance.

The death penalty case is compelling but the characters are not fully developed, leaving a bit of an emotional void. Richard North Patterson tackled a similar subject in Conviction with considerably more passion, but perhaps that is the impartiality of the judge as storyteller here.

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4/14 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

THE HANGING JUDGE by Michael Ponsor. Open Road Media E-riginal (December 3, 2013). ISBN 978-1480441941. 376p.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 12th, 2014 at 9:00 AM and is filed under Book Reviews, Crime Fiction, Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to THE HANGING JUDGE by Michael Ponsor

  1. Anna C.'s avatar Anna C. says:
    April 12, 2014 at 9:59 AM

    Good review! I love historical fiction and legal fiction.