MOUNT DESERT – “You can ask me anything,” said Dominick Dunne, looking over his trademark tortoiseshell glasses with a smile.

It’s only right that a man who earned his fame weaving best-selling novels from whispered threads of society gossip should be as open and engaging.

Hearing him speak during a reading of his new novel, “Justice,” in the Mount Desert village of Seal Harbor on Monday evening, it’s easy to see why the charming Dunne has so often been the confidant of the rich and notorious.

Nattily dressed in a white suit and blue tie, the author of novels such as “A Season in Purgatory” and “An Inconvenient Woman” said he doesn’t understand why he continually falls into the role of confessor for the social elite.

“Things just happen to me, and I let them happen, and write about them later,” Dunne said, joking, “Someone once told me that I look like a defrocked priest, maybe that’s it.”

Dunne, a former Hollywood producer, has been said to have made a career of poor journalism, but fabulous writing. He is always hopelessly entangled in the lives of his subjects, sipping imported champagne at their marble tables as he unlocks their darkest secrets and reveals them to the American public.

“My novels are very glamorous, and very dressy, and fun to read, but at their souls they’re morality tales,” Dunne said. “I am very interested in writing about good and evil.”

Monday’s benefit reading for the Seal Harbor Library was held at Skylands Church, located on the edge of the former Edsel Ford estate purchased several years ago by the evening’s host, Martha Stewart.

The reading was preceded by a silver tea for library patrons, hosted by Stewart at Skylands. Stewart said she selected her friend Dunne for the first of several planned readings because of his mass appeal.

“He deals with the powerful, the super-rich, the notorious, the good, the evil – he weaves a tale and makes it exciting and more interesting than almost anybody,” Stewart said.

“Justice” is a collection of brief accounts of the crimes that Dunne has followed over the years. The Menendez brothers, O.J. Simpson, and Michael Skakel will resonate with the average reader.

But these sons of Los Angeles and Greenwich are a drop in the bucket compared to Sunny von Bulow or Edmond Safra, murder victims so completely protected in the cocoon of their wealth that their names weren’t even known before Dunne’s writing.

“As you can see, I don’t go in for street crime,” the author said.

Neither does Dunne mince words or reserve judgment. He has made powerful enemies and has received death threats, but has no plans to stop laying blame as he tells the tales of society crime.

“What I figure is, if they’re going to shoot you, they’re not going to call you up first,” he said with a shrug. “This is what I like to write about.”

Dunne’s interest in seeing justice done was sparked by the murder of his only daughter 20 years ago in Hollywood. The abusive ex-boyfriend who killed her served less than three years in prison and is now living under a different name. Dunne does not know his whereabouts.

“I don’t want to live in a state of revenge and hate. I thought, this isn’t honoring my daughter – so I let go,” he said.

But in letting go of his very personal grief, Dunne became one of America’s best-known victims’ advocates, a pit-bull who will never let go once he is convinced of guilt or innocence.

During the question-and-answer-period Monday, Dunne kept his promise and shared his insights on some of the most infamous criminal cases in America.

On the Menendez brothers:

Lyle and Erik Menendez gave America, “two of the greatest acting performances in history,” Dunne said. “They had an acting teacher come in the guise of a lawyer to visit them – it was incredible.”

On the murder of Jon-Benet Ramsey:

“I have seen families in a state of rage and revenge. I have seen families doubled over in pain. I’ve never seen anyone like the Ramseys. The second day after the murder, they hired a PR man,” Dunne said. “They know more than they ever told.”

On Congressman Gary Condit’s alleged involvement in the disappearance of Chandra Levy:

“There’s something about this guy that I have taken such a terrible dislike to. I can’t stand the whole male-model-on-the-runway look that he has affected since his mistress turned up missing,” Dunne said. “I keep saying, ‘What is he smiling about?'”

He theorized that one of Condit’s fellow Hell’s Angels picked up the intern at her apartment and carried her on the back of his bike, not to a rendezvous with Condit, but to a death that her lover had arranged.

On the death of actor Robert Blake’s wife:

“He was married to an absolute nightmare of a woman, nonetheless, you don’t kill her,” he said, asking why Blake chose to park in such a dark, secluded area, leaving his wife alone and vulnerable.

“That’s another one they’ll get away with,” Dunne said.