SOURCE: von Kunes, Karen. Review of Judge on Trial, by Ivan Klíma. World Literature Today 68, no. 4 (autumn 1994): 848.

In the following review, von Kunes asserts that Judge on Trial is a culmination of the ideas and thematic material found in Klíma's previous work.

Those who are familiar with Ivan Klíma's writings can recognize Judge on Trial, in one form or another, in the author's previous works. Ambitious in its depths, the novel is a quest for truth and justice, freedom and loyalty. The story, which begins after the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, is multileveled, with numerous flashbacks and reminiscences.

Judge Adam Kindl, who is no longer a member of the Communist Party, is handed a case of double murder, although in reality it is he who is on trial: instructed to bring in a guilty verdict and a sentence of death by hanging for the culprit...