BOOK REVIEW--The Jury Series #1: Judgment by Lee Goldberg

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Vigilantes are a main staple—perhaps the main staple—of the men’s action-adventure genre. After all, who doesn't love a good, pulpy—that’s brain pulp, mind you—“justice from the barrel of a gun" vigilante story? When a badass with a big gun steps outside the law to dispense payback and retribution, I tend to stand up and cheer. Which is awkward when I’m trying to sneak in a few pages during the Sunday morning church service.

The Jury Series #1: Judgment was written back in the '80s heyday of the men's action-adventure craze and features everything carnage connoisseurs covet: a revenge-centric plot, a rough-and-tumble protagonist, heads blown off by heavy-caliber bullets, and dollops of ludicrous sex. (Interesting side-note: Goldberg originally wanted to make the hero impotent but the publisher poured cold water all over that idea. Remember, this was the era of macho men; limp dicks needed not apply for their own action series.)

The quality of prose makes Judgment rise above many of its contemporaries. Granted, not exactly Shakespearean, but definitely a cut above. Because let’s be honest, as much as we all devoured the Executioners and Penetrators and Destroyers and Butchers and the myriad other "-ers" that riddled truck stop book racks back in the day, the writing often left something to be desired. Revisiting some of those old series, even with the glint of nostalgia in my eye, I have realized they many of them were nowhere near as good as I believed them to be in my youth. 

That's why the skill Lee Goldberg—a college student at the time no less—brought to the game feels like a breath of fresh air: it's got all the gory goods, but they're well-written goods, with some slick phrasing and a welcome streak of humor. Who can’t help but chuckle at a backseat oral sex scene like this:

“When Stacy, in the midst of their fervent groping, unzipped his pants without coercion and dropper her head between his legs, Macklin almost fainted with surprise and anxiety. He had never expected her to do that, not in his wildest fantasies. When he opened his eyes afterwards, he expected to see powder burns on Stacy’s face, a hole in the Corvair’s ceiling, and a contrail in the night sky.”

So '80s it will kill you.

Sure, aside from the above-par writing, there is nothing original here, but if you're reading a book about a .357 vigilante (the novel's original title, by the way), do you really want much deviation from the expected norm? You've got the good guy blowing out the bad guys' brains while making quips and getting laid. And that sentence right there is all you need to know to judge whether or not you'll like this book. In fact, if at any point during this review you’ve thought this book sounded interesting, you owe it to yourself to give it a whirl. It might not be literary gold, but it's definitely a crown jewel of the guns ‘n’ guts genre.