SOURCE: Drabelle, Dennis. “Hard Decisions.” Washington Post Book World (18 April 1993): 6.

In the following review, Drabelle concludes that, despite a slow beginning, Judge on Trial is a passionate and compelling novel which serves as a culmination of Klíma's work thus far.

Questions of loyalty have long preoccupied Czech novelist Ivan Klima. His newly translated novel, Judge on Trial, weaves them into a complex pattern that sums up nearly all his work. It's not allegiance to superficial symbols like flags or anthems that engages him—and certainly not to the shibboleths mouthed by the former communist establishment. Rather, the Klima protagonist is likely to agonize over temptations to ditch his profession, or his wife and kids, or his native land and language—and sometimes all the above—in seeking refuge abroad.

For Klima himself, like so many other Czech intellectuals of his generation, the moment of truth came in...