Victim Fiction : JUST REVENGE, A Novel By Alan M. Dershowitz; Warner Books: 322 pp., $24.95

Last year, Roberto Benigni’s “Life Is Beautiful” garnered Academy Awards and worldwide acclaim, showing that while it is possible to produce an entertainment based on the Holocaust, the subject matter requires a deft hand.

Alan M. Dershowitz’s new novel, “Just Revenge,” tells the story of an aging Holocaust survivor who takes revenge on the man responsible for killing his family. It would take a writer of exceptional talent to write a believable and compelling book with such a plot. Though aspects of “Just Revenge” are excellent, and despite his understandable passion for the subject, Dershowitz is not that writer.

Harvard Law School’s Abe Ringel is a criminal defense lawyer with “rugged good looks,” a deep sense of Jewish identity and a cynical but abiding commitment to the adversarial system: Lest we miss it, the book flaps informs us that he is “Dershowitz’s literary alter ego.” Eighty-year-old Max Menuchen is a Harvard Divinity School professor from Europe whose academic specialty is the Book of Ecclesiastes. Unwilling to discuss his past, Menuchen has studiously avoided celebrating Passover and only reluctantly agrees to be a guest at the Ringel family’s Seder. When he’s asked to open the door to let Elijah in, Menuchen experiences a terrifying flashback; he is transported back more than 50 years to the night when his family was murdered by an extermination squad led by sadistic Lithuanian militia Capt. Marcellus Prandus.

Several weeks after the flashback, Menuchen learns that Prandus is alive and well and living near Cambridge. Eager to kill Prandus but unable to bring himself to do it, Menuchen enlists the help of his former Harvard graduate student, Danielle Grant. Grant, who has long been obsessed with getting to know the professor better, is a raging victim of wholly unrelated mistreatment herself and proves surprisingly willing to help.

In what has to be the most pedantic murder conspiracy in fiction, Dershowitz has the killers debate the morality of their actions, conduct research into the intellectual underpinnings of their plan, then engage in exegesis over the biblical basis for it. Bloodthirsty though they seem to be, the conspirators recognize their limitation: Neither is capable of murder. Ultimately, they settle on a plot they believe is inspired by the writings of 12th century Talmudic scholar Moses Maimonides. Fittingly for Harvard conspirators, the plot consists of kidnapping the former Nazi and then talking him to death or, more precisely, convincing him that he has nothing to live for and should commit suicide. Suffice to say, they achieve their goal.

Things must be slow in the district attorney’s office. Even though the victim was a war criminal, the killer an octogenarian Bible scholar and the death a suicide and not a murder, the authorities, led by Harvard Law School graduate Erskine Cox, decide to charge Menuchen. The case is assigned to Judge Jackson Oak--he’s also a Harvard graduate--and Ringel must defend Menuchen by putting the dead “victim” Prandus, and all the perpetrators of the Holocaust, on trial.

“Just Revenge’s” subject and timing are certainly beyond reproach. Whether there can be justice for victims of the Holocaust, and the ethical issues raised by the human desire for revenge, are certainly matters worth considering. Bosnia and Rwanda show that genocide and prosecuting war crimes are recurring modern phenomena, and there is plenty to say about both.

Nor can anyone doubt Dershowitz’s sincerity. The book’s front cover carries a photograph of members of the author’s family killed by the Nazis. The book’s back cover bears praise from Elie Wiesel, David Mamet and Stephen Jay Gould, respectively, among the world’s great humanists, playwrights and scientists.

But for all “Just Revenge’s” good intentions, and despite Dershowitz’s knowledge of history and the law, the book does not succeed. The reason is neither the difficult subject matter nor any defect of Dershowitz’s character. Ultimately, the book fails for the most mundane reason of all: Dershowitz is unable to tell the story well.

The main flaw in “Just Revenge” involves the characters. They are not real personalities but, rather, cardboard stereotypes described not by who they are but by their prior education and employment. Bengal’s daughter goes to Yale Law School, from which we are to surmise she is a rebel. Bengal’s wife lived on a kibbutz and worked for the Mossad: We are told she is “a tower of strength, both physical and psychological,” but we see no evidence of it. Ringer is the liberal lawyer of a thousand books and movies. That Dershowitz helped create this and a number of other cliches in the book does not make any of them any fresher. And Dershowitz’s unwillingness to make Menuchen and Grant dislikable by actually killing Prandus feels like a cop-out.

Rather than infuse the characters with humanity, Dershowitz simply lists their wounds. One character is described as having been shot in the groin years earlier. Another must use a wheelchair as a result of a diving accident. All but one of the major female characters is a victim of sexual abuse. Even in the era of Jerry Springer, merely being a victim does not automatically make a character interesting. And when Dershowitz tries to infuse the story with humor, the results are disheartening: There is an awful lot of discussion about castration, and witty repartee about Susan McDougal and sly references to other legal commentators fall flat.

With unconvincing characters and stilted dialogue, “Just Revenge” is tough going. By the time of the trial, one almost doesn’t care that the prosecution theory is untenable, the legal rulings are bizarre and the result is unlikely. Still, Dershowitz should be commended for trying. It is an audacious effort sincerely made. Though it fails as a courtroom drama, “Just Revenge” is certainly a noble failure.*