Product Description

When Dianne Renzel is murdered and all evidence points to her husband, Lawrence Usser--a law professor specializing in the use of the insanity defense for murder trials--Dianne's parents hire John Tanner to ensure that Usser does not use legal tricks to evade justice. Reissue.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2207571 in Books
• Published on: 1986-12-12
• Released on: 1986-12-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 310 pages

From Publishers Weekly
John Marshall Tanner recounts his latest grim experiences in Greenleaf's fifth novel about this California private eye. In Berkeley, Lawrence Usser is notorious for defending criminals as insane and therefore not guilty. When the lawyer is arrested for the vicious murder of his wife Dianne, her parents hire Tanner to prove the accused sane, to prevent him from escaping justice. Questioning people close to the Ussers, Tanner clashes with Lawrence's psychiatrist who has also treated the couple's young daughter Lisa, a runaway. The detective finds Lisa strung out on drugs and holed up with a gang playing weird games in Berkeley's sub-human corners. Before Tanner solves his knotty case, the plot grows to Byzantine dimensions, with elaborations that strain belief, in spite of its timely and vital subject and the author's superior literary skills. January 27
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Inside Flap
"Readers who like their private-eye novels witty, literate, and properly balanced between misanthropy and compassion will find Stephen Greenleaf's BEYOND BLAME exactly to taste."
NEWSWEEK
Psychologist Dianne Renzel has been brutally butchered in her own bed. The evidence points to her husband, Lawrence Usser, a brilliant law professor, whose speciality is the successful use of the insanity defense for a variety of unsavory clients.
Now Dianne's parents have hired Tanner to make sure Usser doesn't use his customary fancy legal footwork to skip the rap for his own wife's murder. But as Tanner digs into the case, assumption after assumption gives way to question after question, and soon it's nearly impossible to know who is guilty and who is beyond blame....

Customer Reviews

Is the Insanity Plea a Real Excuse for A Crime?
This is a great page-turner and mystery. It is intelligent and literary, while at the same time
containing a lot of sex and violence.

The mystery deals with the insanity plea and whehter it is a real excuse for a crime.