Admissible Evidence

By Philip Herrera

THE RIVER GETS WIDER by R.L. GORDON 234 pages. Thomas Y. Crowell. $6.95.

Is John Andrews, a public paragon and Chief Justice of Canada's Supreme Court, guilty of manslaughter? Though this deftly constructed Canadian novel has all the familiar elements--suspense, surprise, a fine courtroom scene--it is as far from Perry Mason as classical tragedy is from melodrama. The narrator, who is also Andrews' lawyer, is concerned with the deep roots of culpability or innocence rather than simple detection. He reconstructs the Chief Justice's life, posthumously, through the impressions of people who knew him. The recollections serve as admissible evidence--always selective, always specific. Their purpose is to clarify events for final adjudication.

Andrews' character grows as each witness adds anecdote or insight. His boyhood hockey coach remembers him as a superb athlete who once said, "When I try my best I always seem to hurt someone." His pastor proves that John learned early when to bow to expediency. At school he earned every honor, but may also have planned the burning of a dormitory so he could be a hero by saving his sleeping classmates.

Handsome, hardworking, charming, dedicated to excellence, Andrews finished law school at the top of his class.

He married a beautiful, rich girl and, after a distinguished stint in World War II, won a seat in the Canadian Parliament. He rose to be a Minister of Justice --"the most complex man I've ever known and perhaps the most able," says a colleague--and finally Chief Justice. Throughout, Andrews remained aloof (or, to his many critics, cold), thoughtful (or calculating), devoted to the public good (or his own ambition).

The price of such relentless success appears when the reader learns that Andrews' wife, feeling that he no longer needed her, turned to drink. As a result she was a heavy liability to an ambitious man with a growing need for a presentable public partner. He secretly took a mistress. When the wife is eventually found dead, John Andrews is accused of murdering her.

The highlight of the book is Andrews' testimony in his own defense at the trial. The alert reader will spot a small honorable lie that may or may not be only one of many. Like the impartial lawyer that he is, the narrator reserves comment as first the jury and then Andrews deliver separate, but mutually incompatible verdicts. That leaves the reader alone with the absorbing task of judging the life of a man.

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