Stephen Becker's 1959 book, A Covenant with Death was a bestseller. It not only was a Book of the Month Club selection but the paperback rights had already been sold by the time it appeared on the New York Times bestseller list and it was made into a movie in 1967. Becker joined Saul Bellow, Len Deighton, Victoria Holt and Herman Wouk on the NYT bestseller list for April 4. It is sadly out of print, however. This is a lost in the stacks book that I have actually read. It was with much relish that I finished it earlier this week. Normally books that deal with courtroom drama don't appeal to me as much as other types of stories, but I found this one quite engrossing.
"Louise Talbot chose to spend the last afternoon of her life lounging in the shade of a leafy sycamore at the split-rail fence before her home."
Louise Talbot is only twenty-seven, but is perhaps the most "disturbing" woman in Soledad City. She isn't intentionally provocative, but she doesn't need to be. Attractive, stylish and well dressed, friendly and more importantly lonely. Small towns, particularly in 1923, and the likes of Louise Talbot don't mix easily. She spends her last hours chatting and laughing with her neighbors and passersby. And four hours later she was dead.
There's little doubt her husband did it, and the court case seems only a matter of formality for Judge Lewis. Known in 1923 as Young Judge Lewis, Ben narrates the story from the comfort of his study some forty years later. It's with much wisdom and hindsight he tells the story, but in 1923 he was a newly minted judge. At only twenty-nine Ben is made a judge by the Governor who knew his father, and in this sweltering New Mexico summer he must preside over his first capital trial. If convicted the accused faces death by hanging.
I don't want to give away any details of the trial, which gives the story such excitement, but a number of twists make it not nearly so cut and dry as expected. This isn't, however, just a straightforward courtroom drama. The setting and characters play into the storytelling adding depth and perspective. In 1923 New Mexico had not long been a state and still had the mentality of a territory. Prohibition may be raging in the rest of the country, but the only thing dry in Soledad City is the landscape.
"We were a queer sort of town, part frontier, part plantation, part pleasure, part cruelty, part old Mexico, part clanking modernity, and, as noted, part murder."
Ben himself is a product of his environment to some extent. The son of an American father and Mexican mother who were happily married and impressed upon him the importance of strong principles, he was educated in Chicago and fought in the World War. He's a thoughtful and sensitive man, but certainly at the beginning of the story he's still uncertain and unsure of his decisions. He must grapple with the question of how best to serve the law and society, so this is a moral conundrum as well. And against it all he is dealing with his own personal dilemmas.
If you come across Stephen Becker's The Covenant with Death it's well worth reading.