Penelope has always done her best to be a good wife, a good mistress, a good mother ‹ and a good magistrate. Today, she is more conscious than usual of the thinness of the thread that separates good from bad, the law-abiding from the criminal. Sitting in court, hearing a short, sad case of indecent exposure and a long, confused theft, she finds herself simultaneously examining her own sex life (how would all that sound in court?), her own actions and intentions. A tour de force, Nina Bawden¹s ingeniously constructed novel counterpoints public appearance with private behavior. The result is a marvelous picture of a not always admirable but engagingly complex, very human heroine.