Covenant with Death

Product Information

Ben Lewis is young for a judge. He was appointed by the governor as a favor to his dead father. Sometimes he doubts his ability as a judge and facing the most important trial of his career others do also. The trial concerns the murder of a beautiful woman. Her husband, who was drunk at the time, found her and immediately became the chief suspect. The case seems open and shut, but is it? It's only March 5th and this may be my favorite book of the year, and I've been reading some great ones lately. It's described as a courtroom drama, but it's way more than that. It's also a coming-of-age story, although the person struggling to mature is our narrator, a 29 year old State appointed judge. A beautiful young wife is murdered, her husband is arested, and, as Shakespeare would say, thereby hangs a tale.

A gorgeous small town beauty has been strangled – but by whom? Her husband, drunk, found her – and he is arrested. But he keeps saying he’s innocent. Who wouldn’t?

Browse articles by tag

Hi im new to all this so i hope im posting in the correct place. i just started looking into my G.Grandads role in the war and ive been lent a very old and fragile book called COVENANTS WITH DEATH, Daily Express Publications, London 1934. Edited by T.A.Innes & Ivor Castle. It's written with the elegance of a classic, a storyline that will keep you guessing, few lessons about life and love, and tells of the moral dilemmas which are encountered along the paths of everyday folks who for the most part are just trying to do the right thing. In a stunning turn of events, Talbot unintentionally kills his executioner while trying to avoid being hanged for a murder he fiercely denies having committed. While awaiting the arrival of a replacement hangman, another man confesses to killing Talbot's Wife. Judge Lewis must negotiate various relationships (with his mother and two very different women for whom he harbors strong and conflicting feelings); provincial attitudes about love and marriage, sexuality, modernity, maturity, cultural integrity, group loyalty; and his faith in the triumph of justice.

The republication of this 1961 novel is arriving in a timely manner, as WWI historical fiction has become popular with the anniversary upon us. Covenant with Death is a book about three chums who joined the British Army at the start of the war. The author, John Harris, writes with authenticity from the viewpoint of foot soldier Mark Fenner, “Fen” to his buddies. We follow Fen and some of the local boys from their hometown in Sheffield, England, to Egypt and then to the Somme. The reader travels with the army in dark, louse-infested boxcars to the front and experiences new lands and budding relationships born out of loneliness, then finally the horrors of war along with the men in this Company. It says we have made a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell. They have done this because they have made lies their refuge, and try to hide under falsehoods. It says it plainly in Hosea chapter 10:13 that “ ye have eaten the fruit of lies: because thou didst trust in thy way…” We Have Made a Covenant with Death

We have made a covenant with death - We are not to suppose that they had formally said this, but that their conduct was as if they had said it; they lived as securely as if they had entered into a compact with death not to destroy them, and with hell not to devour them. The figure is a very bold one, and is designed to express the extraordinary stupidity of the nation. It is most strikingly descriptive of the great mass of people. They are as little anxious about death and hell as if they had made a compact with the king of terrors and the prince of darkness not to destroy them. They are as little moved by the appeals of the gospel, by the alarms of God's providence, by the preaching of his word, and by all the demonstrations that they are exposed to eternal death, as though they had proved that there was no hell, or had entered into a solemn covenant that they should be unmolested. A figure similar to this occurs in Job 5:23 : Covenant With Death . . . showed with unbearable actuality what happened to a newly formed Sheffield regiment on the first day of the battle of the Somme'

The only reason I gave it four stars instead of five stars is because it was very wordy in parts, and at time too introspective that did not move the story along. But then, that was the kind of story people liked to read in 1964. For you said, "We have made a covenant with death; we have fashioned an agreement with Sheol. When the overwhelming scourge passes through it will not touch us, because we have made lies our refuge and falsehood our hiding place."And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.