REVIEW: Gary Stein — Justice for Sale (BOOK)
The opening of Gary Stein’s new nonfiction book reads like that of a delicious, Le Carré-esque political thriller. “On a chilly late winter morning in the midst of the Great Depression, a bald and fretful middle-aged man ascended the steps leading into a gleaming granite skyscraper in downtown Manhattan,” Stein writes, in the prologue for the aptly titled Justice for Sale: Graft, Greed, and a Crooked Federal Judge in 1930s Gotham. “Once a prominent banker and lawyer, John L. Lotsch had, like so many other New Yorkers, fallen on hard times.
When money grew scarce, so did his scruples. He had gotten mixed up in a racket of sorts, and he needed to make a payment — a big-time payment — to ensure his protection.” In effect, welcome to the world of the Great Depression, specifically 1930s New York City. It’s a time where top to bottom there was uncontrolled, unregulated corruption, backstabbing, and loansharking to boot.
A time that makes the stories popular film noir put out in droves look like child’s play. Indeed, part of what makes Stein’s book so appealing is how detailed and expansive he is about illustrating the nature of the world depicted within the pages of Justice for Sale: Graft, Greed, and a Crooked Federal Judge in 1930s Gotham. It’s a scary one, the kind that provokes a real, adult fear. Particularly when you look at how things have changed, how some things have not, and where we could be going if there ever is a modern-day repeat of a time when things truly felt like the depleted, Wild West in a post-Edison, industrial landscape.
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Justice-Sale-Crooked-Federal-Gotham/dp/1493072560
Stein is smart to essentially summarize his story in the prologue, before getting into the specifics chapter by chapter. There’s never the feeling he is reticent or unknowledgeable about certain aspects of the material. As a result, there’s a relaxed and wholly immersive feel to the book. Some nonfiction books, particularly ones focusing on complex time periods in history, can feel feverish and rushed — even if they’re written by bonafide, esteemed experts. Not Stein’s, though.
You’re pulled in, seduced even, slowly — assuredly. So when the chilling parts of the read creep up on you in the text, you feel the knife twisting in your gut full-force. You can feel the sense of desolation and hopelessness characters existent in this time period faced. There’s a kind of tight embrace the book wraps you up in, one you sometimes find yourself struggling to get out of. It’s a trait not often seen in nonfiction books of this nature, and one that puts Stein in a certain class of writers exceeding the typical caliber and milieu.
“’One of the most monstrous plots to buy and sell justice was born and flourished within the walls of (an) (American) courthouse,’ (a) US attorney who later prosecuted (the titular) (Judge Martin T.) Manton said to (a) jury who (would) convi(ct) him. ‘It became, instead of a courthouse, a counting house.’ Amid the multitude of rackets at work in the 1930s, Judge Manton was operating one of his own: a justice racket.” This kind of succinctness and plot summarization is again what makes the communication of the already compelling, murky, and twisty story so effective.
Colin Jordan
