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Thursday, June 15, 2017

THE ONE-EYED JUDGE by Michael Ponsor

THE ONE-EYED JUDGE
by
Michael Ponsor

            The One-Eyed Judge is the second novel written by Michael Ponsor, a U.S. District Court judge for the District of Massachusetts, about Judge David Norcross, also a Massachusetts federal judge. As I loved Ponsor’s first novel, The Hanging Judge (see review dated October 28, 2014), I jumped at the opportunity to read The One-Eyed Judge. And once again, Ponsor does not disappoint.

            Child pornography. That is the gruesome crime with which Professor Stanley Cranmer is charged. Ironic, as Cranmer is an English professor at Amherst College, specializing in Lewis Carroll. After the case is assigned to Judge Norcross, his life is thrown into turmoil – and not just because his girlfriend is a colleague and friend of Cranmer’s.

            While reading The One-Eyed Judge, I was reminded of what I wrote while reviewing The Hanging Judge: as a lawyer and former federal judicial law clerk, Ponsor’s fiction is just the sort of book that I usually avoid. But, Ponsor masterfully incorporates his many years of experience on the federal bench, and The One-Eyed Judge is a realistic and gripping legal thriller.


            I thoroughly enjoyed The One-Eyed Judge, and I cannot wait to read the next Judge Norcross novel.