Showing results by author "Gerald G. Neufeld" in All Categories

Frightened, my wife nudges me awake, certain that she heard a noise somewhere in the house. I hear the intruder a moment later. Our home is in a run-down part of town where burglaries and robbery have become commonplace. Worried about our 18-month-old in an adjoining room, I get up, grabbing a golf club I know to be in our closet, and go out to investigate. There's just sufficient light to illuminate the form of a man close to me in the hall.

> Beyond the Shadow of a Doubt is, at first glance, a legal thriller in which figures a detailed account of a trial for an innocent young man's life. But, unlike most books of that genre, the novel may be said to be more character- than plot-driven with color and much attention to the family lives of the attorney and the defendant. Though not overtly stated, the thrusts of the book are two - the inherent defect of a prosecutory system that foresees the occasional execution of the wrong person, and the vagaries of chance that, without warning, can embroil us in a struggle for our lives.

If you were forced to choose between loss of sight, hearing, touch, taste, or smell, which of these would you let go? If you had to relinquish a part of your body, would it be an arm, a leg, or would you give up your face? Indignant, who, you ask, would be insane enough to sacrifice their face? "I might not especially like who looks back at me in the mirror every morning," you declare, "but whether I do or don't, that face is me. Who would I be, after all, if I no longer had my face?