Benjamin Justice is winding up an author tour following the publication of his memoir, "Deep Background: The True Story of a Disgraced Journalist and the Pulitzer Scandal that Destroyed Him". The publicity results in the appearance of a skinhead motorcyclist, the reason for whose attentions Justice can't figure out. (I did, fairly early, but won't spoil it!). Then there are the threatening postcards from an old (though unknown to Justice) "admirer", who had an affair with an older Hollywood interior designer and may or may not have been responsible for his death. (It's this character's penchant for spiders that gives the book its name.)

Justice continues to fight his demons, and a rival journalist seems intent on bringing him back down into the alcoholic gutter from which he had dragged himself. At the same time, he is reconnecting with Ismael Aragon, who has left the priesthood and is coming to terms with his own homosexuality, an exploration which Justice would be glad to help him with!

Although the Benjamin Justice series is shelved among "mysteries", this one really isn't. It's really more about how Justice deals with unexpected revelations from his past, and with the changes in his present. So those who pick it up expecting a mystery may be a bit disappointed, but I've always felt that Wilson is better at characterization than plotting, so no disappointment on my end.

"Spider Season", like the other Benjamin Justice books are well written in the hard boiled "noir"style of crime fiction and populated with interesting characters, although not all of them are developed as completely as one would like. The mysteries are usually all sorted out by the end of the book, as was the case in this one. There's some recurring characters from book to book, although some have been killed off as the series progresses. One such character dies in this book.

This is the latest installment of the story of the life and times of Benjamin Justice, the protagonist of this book and the preceding ones in the series. It would be difficult to find another person who has had so much trouble in their life: his abusive father who Justice killed when he caught him raping his younger sister, an alcoholic mother, the death of his life partner from AIDS, the loss of his journalism career (and a Pulitzer prize), even the loss of an eye and being deliberately infected with AIDS through male rape. All this is described in the other books in the series. The "Spider Season" continues this litany of bad luck and misfortunes, although at the end there is hope for better times in the future as Justice heads off to Mexico with a new boyfriend. Let's hope that there will be another book in the series to pick up Justice's story. ( )