Rough Justice

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

Technically, I ought not to be reviewing this book, since the
contributors are 13 colleagues of mine at the University of Toronto. I
feel I can do so, however, since the volume’s importance lies
elsewhere. Friedland, a professor of law, has come up with an excellent
idea for an interdisciplinary course and book: that members of the
English Department should pool their resources to deliver a series of
lectures in the Faculty of Law concerning literary texts—British,
American, and Canadian (plus the Bible)—that relate to crime and
criminal law. It appears to have been a notably successful enterprise,
and offers an inspiriting example for more imaginative efforts to break
down the formidable barriers between academic disciplines.

My colleagues, framed by the late Northrop Frye (discussing “Crime
and Sin in the Bible”) and the novelist Josef Skvorecky (considering
the art and implications of detective fiction), seem to me to have
acquitted themselves well. Some, to be sure, are rather more successful
than others in presenting their material to an intelligent yet
(critically speaking) nonspecialist audience, but their scholarly range
and depth are similarly admirable, and all of them firmly eschew jargon.
There may be something rough about the justice portrayed, but not about
the information the lecturers bring to their task.

I learned a lot from this book, which is both serious and accessible.
Congratulations may be extended to editors, lecturers, publisher, and
not least to the person responsible for the simple but elegant design
(who, oddly, is never identified).