This sounds like the start of an old Bob Hope / Bing Crosby film, but it's much more contemporary than that.
It's wonderful to bring back Lee Mitchell for a crime and legal thriller reading audience, because there isn't another character like her. A Black woman barrister who grew up working class, she has succeeded against all the odds in a profession which, even in 2023, can still be as unwelcoming in some quarters for someone with those three ‘ trikes' –race, gender and class – against her as it was in 1997 when ‘Without Prejudice' was first published.
Until Proven Innocent represents a number of things to me.
It represents 23 years of thinking, dreaming, losing and then regaining hope, and then 12 to 18 months of writing.
It represents / it was that dream deferred that lay dormant for a long time and it was brought to life by three things: first, meeting my agent Jonathan Ruppin; then the first Lockdown when writing a book seemed to be the only sane response in an unrecognisable world turned both inside out and upside down, with fear and death everywhere.
And then there was Bernardine.
I actually met Bernardine Evaristo just before the March 2020 Lockdown in a real-life 'sliding doors' moment: being invited to an event that I really didn't want to go to, unaware that she would be there. Amazingly, she remembered my first book and simply said, “You should have written more: I thought it was really good." Then after she won the Booker Prize, she championed my first book Without Prejudice and five other novels she felt should have received more attention when they were first published. As a result of that Penguin expressed interest in what I was then working on – and Until Proven Innocent was born.
Now the creative taps have been reopened I intend to write a lot more. Legal thrillers, yes: Lee Mitchell is here to stay as a unique voice in crime fiction. But other projects too. I'm fascinated by ethical questions – Without Prejudice was based on a question every criminal barrister, including myself, has been asked at least once: “How can you represent someone you know is guilty?” Until Proven Innocent considers the opposite: how do you represent a truly repellent individual who has been accused of an horrific offence that has received national attention when everyone, including their colleagues, thinks they have done it, but there is a tiny possibility they are innocent? Especially when the accused is a corrupt, bigoted, racist police Sargeant and the victim is the 15-year-old Black teenager, the son of a well known community leader, who is also the pastor of the church Verna Mitchell, Lee's mother, attends? This is Lee’s dilemma.
When I was writing this book I had no idea that the Baroness Casey Review into the standards and behaviour of the internal culture of the Metropolitan Police would also be published in the same month as my book. It is sadly timely, and shows the issues I have written about (and that I had personal experience of when I was a Commissioner at the then IPCC – now IOPC – from 2004-8) are still worryingly present today in real life.
But to end on a positive and optimistic note, I hope the return of Lee Mitchell will shown to any writer who has lost heart, who feels their chance to be published has gone forever, that it truly is never too late. And here's to not having to wait as long as 25 years!
Until Proven Innocent by Nicola Williams (Penguin Random House) Out Now
The gripping new courtroom thriller following barrister Lee Mitchell in her most controversial case yet. Lee Mitchell is a young barrister from a working-class Caribbean background: in the cut-throat environment of the courtroom, everything is stacked against her. On her doorstep in South London the 15-year-old son of the pastor at the local Black church is shot, and the local community is shattered. All evidence is pointing to infamously corrupt, racist police officer Sergeant Jack Lambert as the irredeemable suspect. His own boss - rebel-turned-copper Danny Wallace - is certain he is guilty. Against her will, Lee is strong-armed into defending him. With cries of 'Black Lives Matter!' echoing in the streets, Lee is at the centre of the turmoil as lies, anger, and mistrust spiral out of control. With the line between her personal and professional life becoming increasingly blurred, Lee keeps asking herself the same question: How can she defend the indefensible?
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