A Threat to Justice, book two in the “Justice Riders” series, begins at the close of the Civil War. Ezra Justice and his band of men, having settled accounts with a gang of criminals and troublemakers, are on their way to St. Louis to catch a train. Their commander, General Sherman, has summoned them to Washington, though they know not why. Another mission for the government perhaps? Maybe their most important yet?
A Threat to Justice is a lively and inspiring story of ordinary men accomplishing extraordinary outcomes by trusting in their faith and refusing to compromise their integrity, even in the most difficult of circumstances. Ezra Justice is the center strand in this band of seven men, and the story shows that though a band of three be not easily broken, a band of seven is surely unconquerable, particularly with God on their side.
Ezra and his men do well to have God on their side as they traverse the South during the Reconstruction Period, eventually disbanding and setting off to take up their lives where they'd left off when the war began. It isn't long before Ezra calls upon his friends for aid, this time to battle a new thorn in America's side: the Ku Klux Klan, then in its infancy, though no less sinister. Ezra Justice, Nathanial "Big Nate" York, Harry White Cloud, Reginald Bonesteel, and the twins Carlos and Roberto Hawkins regroup and set out to break the Klan's stronghold among the people of Pulaski, Tennessee.
A Threat to Justice is a refreshing change from the more secular Western novels. Its pages are not littered with profanities, sexually explicit content, or over-exaggerated violence. The heroes in this story are a diverse collection of men of varying ethnicities and cultures among whom friendship, trust, faith, and brotherhood have displaced stereotypes, social ignorance, and thick-wittedness. They are men ahead of their times.
Good storytelling is alive an well in the “Justice Riders” series, book two particularly. If television is looking for its next best miniseries, it should start with these authors and the Justice Riders, undoubtedly a win-win situation. I look forward to subsequent novels in this series and I highly recommend it for adults, as well as teen and young adult readers. Parents, particularly, can feel comfortable adding this book to the family library.