Review: The Ghost of Justice by Clifford Herdt

I have a fascination with the dark corners of history, of things and events not well known to the general public. When I stumbled upon this book, the blurb on the back indicated the book would fit this interest. The book attempts to tell the story of a private detective operating during the middle of the 20th century. Please notice my intentional use of the word 'attempts'.

The book becomes a muddle of myths and legends surrounding this man. Very little appears to be researched. This would be acceptable if this was just supposed to be a collection of stories but the book purports to be a document of an historical figure. Instead of detail and documentation, we get the retelling of stories that have gone through the 'telephone' game, becoming lurid and overblown in the process. It's as if the author found a bunch of cheap old crime pulp paperback books and retold the stories within them.

In the author's defense, some of this story may not be so easily researched. The big claim of the book is that the detective spent most of his time as a 'ghost'. Unless the man had an interview where he said 'I am a ghost' and was tested so that an expert said 'Yup, he's a ghost', how do you prove that?

The author needed a better proofreader and editor. Typos happen and I get that but this book was just swimming in them. I'm not sure there was a page without a typo. The author would start to develop a point but then disappear into the telling of another story. I think he was of the opinion that the story would prove his point without further explanation but it wasn't clear for me.

I found the subject matter interesting but the book doesn't make the 'ghost detective' easy to learn about.