A Case of Mice and Murder

Whenever I meet new people and they ask me what I do, I say ‘I am a barrister’. I never pause to think about it. I have been saying it all my adult life. I live and work in the Inner Temple, one of the four Inns of Court in London. I put on a wig and gown and went to court and argued cases every day for more than thirty years. I am a barrister. The last time I said it, was at a party thrown recently by my agent. It was the first publishing party I had ever been to. ‘I am a barrister,’ I said in response to a polite query from a fellow guest. ‘Oh, he said ‘What are you doing here, then?’

What was I doing there? I am still wondering.

‘A Case of Mice and Murder’ is my COVID novel. Faced for the first time in my life with enforced seclusion, I wrote it more for fun than with any thought of publication.

The story was inspired by the extraordinary status of the Inner and Middle Temple (collectively known as the Temple.) The area, as a so-called ancient liberty, is in many ways quite separate from the whole of the rest of London. It is an independent local authority. And believe it or not, the City of London Police enter only with the permission of the Temple and share policing of the area with the Temple porters. Couple that with the fact that the same Temple porters man the gates 24 hours a day and the area is locked at night to all outsiders, and you have the makings of a classic murder mystery. It really only needed a body, a detective and a sidekick. So I set to, and ‘A Case of Mice and Murder’ is the result.

It tells the story of two mysteries in 1901 in the heart of legal London.

The first is the dramatic murder of the Lord Chief Justice and the quest to find his killer. The second a sensational legal battle over the rights to a book written by an anonymous author. 

There is one man linking them; Sir Gabriel Ward KC, Eton and Oxford educated, brilliant, solitary, reclusive, bound by compulsive rituals; reluctant sleuth in the first story, legendary advocate in the second.

The body of the Lord Chief Justice, is found in evening dress, with mysteriously bare feet, lying in the Temple one morning in 1901. The ‘how’ is not very difficult; a carving knife is sticking out of his chest. But who would do such a thing to a conventional successful Judge? And why?

Sir Gabriel Ward KC has no desire to play detective. He wants to be left alone to prepare for his next case. But he literally stumbles upon the body and so becomes drawn into the mystery.

His sidekick is Constable Maurice Wright of the City of London Police, who yearns to become a detective, left school at fourteen, has never read a book for pleasure and who lives with his large loving family in the East End of London.

At the same time as he and Wright investigate, Sir Gabriel is worrying about his next case; and that is a mystery, too. Sir Gabriel is not the kind of barrister who blusters his way round the Old Bailey representing murderers and his cases might be thought dry and technical. But not this one. Ward is representing a publisher who found the manuscript of a children’s book on his office doorstep with no hint as to its authorship. He published it and found himself with a smash hit that makes him a fortune. A woman claims to be the author. But is she really?

Between them, Sir Gabriel and Constable Wright while unravelling the complexities of the cases discover, along with the murderer, and the true author of the book, a friendship across the social divides of Edwardian England.

Now close to publication, I still feel like a barrister at heart but maybe, when my book actually comes out I will get over my imposter syndrome and feel able to say, when I am next asked, that I am a writer as well.

A Case of Mice and Murder by Sally Smith is published by Raven Books on 18th July 2024.

The Inner Temple: a warren of shaded courtyards and ancient buildings forming the hidden heart of London’s legal world. A place where tradition is everything, and murder belongs only in the casebooks. Until now… When barrister Gabriel Ward steps out of his rooms on a sunny May morning in 1901, his mind is so full of his latest case – the disputed authorship of bestselling children’s book Millie the Temple Church Mouse – that he scarcely registers the body of the Lord Chief Justice of England on his doorstep. But even he cannot fail to notice the judge’s dusty bare feet, in shocking contrast to his flawless evening dress, nor the silver carving knife sticking out of his chest. The police can enter the Temple only by consent, so who better to investigate this tragic breach of law and order than a man who prizes both above all things? But murder doesn’t answer to logic or reasoned argument, and Gabriel soon discovers that the Temple’s heavy oak doors are hiding more surprising secrets than he’d ever imagined.

One Half Truth by Eva Dolan (review)

ONE HALF TRUTH By Eva Dolan

Publisher:  Raven Books

Format: Hardback [also available as eBook and Audiobook]

Price:  £14.99

Release Date:  13 May 2021

Reviewer:  Sara Townsend

When detectives DI Dushan Zigic and DS Mel Ferreira are called to the report of a late-night shooting, they expect it to be drugs or gang related. They don’t expect to find a young student journalist murdered on his way home, for no apparent reason.

The case becomes more complex when it is discovered that those responsible for the death of Jordan Radley also broke into his house to take his laptop and notes of his latest case, which had to do with the closure of an engineering firm four years earlier, and the devastating impact it had on the community. A sad story, but surely not one worth murdering for. Zigic and Ferreira dig a bit deeper and begin to believe that Jordan was investigating something else, a bigger story that had the potential for a more explosive impact, but all evidence of what he was working on has vanished.

This the sixth book in the series featuring DI Zigic and DS Ferreira. There’s not much of an insight into these two main characters, and I imagine those who have followed the series from the beginning, and know the characters well, will get more out of the story. The writing is tight and flows into a satisfactory conclusion, although there are no real twists or explosive plot revelations. However, fans of police procedurals, even those who are not familiar with the earlier books in the series, will still enjoy this well-written and engaging novel.

 

 

Books to Look Forward to From Bloomsbury Publishing

 January 2021

Wicked deeds require the cover of darkness... A struggling silhouette artist in Victorian Bath seeks out a renowned child spirit medium in order to speak to the dead - and to try and identify their killers - in this beguiling new tale from Laura Purcell. Silhouette artist Agnes is struggling to keep her business afloat. Still recovering from a serious illness herself, making enough money to support her elderly mother and her orphaned nephew Cedric has never been easy, but then one of her clients is murdered shortly after sitting for Agnes, and then another, and another... Desperately seeking an answer, Agnes approaches Pearl, a child spirit medium lodging in Bath with her older half-sister and her ailing father, hoping that if Pearl can make contact with those who died, they might reveal who killed them. But Agnes and Pearl quickly discover that instead they may have opened the door to something that they can never put back... What secrets lie hidden in the darkness? The Shape of Darkness is by Laura Purcell.

Post Mortem is by Gary Bell. Can Rook keep his criminal past a secret when facing the most dangerous case of his life? Thirteen men have died in a London prison. Barrister Elliot Rook QC, who risks losing everything if his secret criminal past is revealed, must defend Charli Meadows, the vulnerable single mother accused of smuggling the deadly tainted drugs inside. But just as Rook becomes suspicious of those closest to Charli, a note arrives at his flat - threatening violence if the trial is not called off. While Rook battles to defend Charli and protect himself, his young protege Zara Barnes is fighting for her livelihood. In a few short weeks, only one tenancy at the legal chambers will be available to the ever-multiplying mass of pupils. Determined to make it hers, Zara takes on her biggest solo case yet. But will her gamble pay off?

Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires: The Life of Patricia Highsmith is by Richard Bradford. Made famous by the great success of her psychological thrillers, The Talented Mr Ripley and Strangers on a Train, Patricia Highsmith is lauded as one of the great modern writers. However, there has never been a clear picture of the woman behind the books. The triangular relationship between Highsmith's lesbianism, her fraught personality - by parts self-destructive and malicious - and her fiction has been largely avoided by other biographers. She was openly lesbian and would, in modern times, be venerated as a radical exponent of an LGBT lifestyle. However, her status as an exemplar of gay radicalism is undermined by the incontrovertible fact that she was gratuitously cruel and exploitative of her lovers. In this new biography, Richard Bradford brings his sharp, incisive style to one of the great, and most controversial, writers of the twentieth century. He considers Highsmith's best-sellers in the context of her troubled personal life; her alcoholism, her anti-Semitism and her misogyny.

February 2021

Lightseekers is by Femi Kayode. Three young students are brutally murdered in a Nigerian university town, their killings - and their killers - caught on social media. The world knows who murdered them; what no one knows is why. As the legal trial begins, investigative psychologist Philip Taiwo is contacted by the father of one of the boys, desperate for some answers to his son's murder. Philip is an expert in crowd behaviour and violence but travelling to the sleepy university town that bore witness to the killings, he soon feels dramatically out of his depth. Years spent first studying, then living in the US with his wife and children mean he is unfamiliar with many Nigerian customs and no one involved in the case seems willing to speak out. The more Philip digs, and the more people he meets with a connection to the case, the more he begins to realise that there is something very wrong concealed somewhere in this community.

March 2021

The Mystery of the Parsee Lawyer is by Shrabani Basu. In the village of Great Wyrley near Birmingham, someone is mutilating horses. Someone is also sending threatening letters to the vicarage, where the vicar, Shahpur Edalji, is a Parsi convert to Christianity and the first Indian to have a parish in England. His son George - quiet, socially awkward and the only boy at school with distinctly Indian features - grows up into a successful barrister, till he is improbably linked to and then prosecuted for the above crimes in a case that left many convinced that justice hadn't been served. When he is released early, his conviction still hangs over him. Having lost faith in the police and the legal system, George Edalji turns to the one man he believes can clear his name - the one whose novels he spent his time reading in prison, the creator of the world's greatest detective. When he writes to Arthur Conan Doyle asking him to meet, Conan Doyle agrees. From the author of Victoria and Abdul comes an eye-opening look at race and an unexpected friendship in the early days of the twentieth century, and the perils of being foreign in a country built on empire.

Musician Charlotte Dove has vanished after playing in a concert for a prestigious orchestra led by a conductor world-renowned as a charismatic, obsessive genius who pushes his musicians to their very limit. The police insist that there are no signs of foul play and that with Charlotte's passport missing, she is unlikely to be in any danger. But where did Charlotte go? And why would she leave without a word to her husband, fellow musician Henry, having just secured the job of a lifetime? Journalist Richard Blake is struggling to find work in the new online world. He sees Charlotte's disappearance as an opportunity to restart his career by exploiting the growing obsession with true crime podcasts. But the more he delves into Charlotte's past, and the more his audience grows, bringing him into direct conflict with the police, the murkier her story becomes... The Disappearance of Charlotte Dove is by Alice Clark-Platts.

April 2021

Greenwich Park is by Katherine Faulkner. Helen has it all... Daniel is the perfect husband. Rory is the perfect brother. Serena is the perfect sister-in-law. And Rachel? Rachel is the perfect nightmare. When Helen, finally pregnant after years of tragedy, attends her first antenatal class, she is expecting her loving architect husband to arrive soon after, along with her confident, charming brother Rory and his pregnant wife, the effortlessly beautiful Serena. What she is not expecting is Rachel. Extroverted, brash, unsettling single mother-to-be Rachel, who just wants to be Helen's friend. Who just wants to get know Helen and her friends and her family. Who just wants to know everything about them. Every little secret...

May 2021

When the police are called to the report of a late-night shooting, they expect it to be drugs or gang-related. They don't expect to find a young student executed on his way home. Jordan Radley was an aspiring journalist: hard working, well-liked, dedicated. His first major story - looking at the fallout following the closure of a major local factory - had run recently and looked to be the first step in his longed-for career. Even after the story ran, Jordan continued to stay in contact with those he interviewed: he was on his way back from their social club the night he was murdered. But as the detectives quickly discover, not only was Jordan killed, but those responsible also broke into his house, taking his laptop and notes. What was he researching that might have led to his death? And can this really be linked to another case - long ruled an accident - in the same area or are the police being forced to prioritise those with the best connections rather than the ones that most need their help? One Half Truth is by Eva Dolan.

June 2021

I know What I Saw is by Imran Mahmood.  I saw it. He smothered her, pressing his hands on her face. The police don't believe me, they say it's impossible - but I know what I saw. This is Xander Shute: once a wealthy banker, now living on the streets. As he shelters for the night in an empty Mayfair flat, he hears its occupants returning home, and scrambles to hide as the couple argue. Trapped in his hiding place, he soon finds himself witnessing a vicious murder. But who was the dead woman, who the police later tell him can't have been there? And why is the man Xander saw her with evading justice? As Xander searches for answers, his memory of the crime comes under scrutiny, forcing him to confront his long-buried past and the stories he's told about himself. How much he is willing to risk to understand the brutal truth?

Books to Look Forward to from Bloomsbury Publishing

July 2020

Murder by Milk Bottle is by Lynne Truss.  The August bank holiday is approaching and after two extremely high-profile murder cases, Constable Twitten is eagerly anticipating a quiet spell at work. But then they find the bodies - and the milk bottles.  Three seemingly unconnected victims - a hard-working AA patrolman, a would-be Beauty Queen, a catty BBC radio personality - have all been killed with the same, highly unusual murder weapon. Constable Twitten, Sergeant Brunswick and Inspector Steine are initially baffled, the town is alarmed, and the local newspaper is delighted: after all, what sells papers better than a killer on the loose?   Can our redoubtable trio solve the case and catch this most curious of killers before they strike again?

October 2020

The Devil and The Dark Water is by Stuart Turton.  A murder on the high seas. A detective

duo. A demon who may or may not exist.  It's 1634 and Samuel Pipps, the world's greatest detective, is being transported to Amsterdam to be executed for a crime he may, or may not, have committed. Travelling with him is his loyal bodyguard, Arent Hayes, who is determined to prove his friend innocent. But no sooner are they out to sea than devilry begins to blight the voyage.  A twice-dead leper stalks the decks. Strange symbols appear on the sails. Livestock is slaughtered. And then three passengers are marked for death, including Samuel. Could a demon be responsible for their misfortunes? With Pipps imprisoned, only Arent can solve a mystery that connects every passenger on-board.  A mystery that stretches back into their past and now threatens to sink the ship, killing everybody on board... 

Scatter her Ashes is by Heine Bakkied.  Thorkild Aske returns in the second in this brilliant, darkly funny crime series from a fresh voice in Nordic Noir Disgraced, damaged former police officer Thorkild Aske has stopped taking his painkillers after his last experience searching for the missing in northern Norway. Wracked by withdrawal and desperate for work, he reluctantly agrees to investigate the disappearance of two schoolgirls for crime fiction superstar Milla Lind - but Lind clearly has more invested in the case than fiction. When Thorkild discovers that her previous investigator was murdered on the job, no-one will explain why - all he has to go on are files about unrelated cases from all across Norway. Oh, and his ex-wife wants to talk. What could possibly go wrong?

November 2020

The headlines scream warnings about the 'Butcher of Berner Street!' and the journalist behind them - Leo Stanhope - is secretly thrilled to see the effect his words are having. Leo's previous work has largely been concentrated on more mundane issues but when an anonymous letter summons him to a club in East London, only for the owner of the club to be found murdered shortly afterwards, Leo sees a story worth pursuing. Not to mention an opportunity to make a name for himself. Yet the more Leo digs, the stranger the story becomes, taking him from the club to a nearby convent, and into the past of a very unusual woman. But he is not the only one hunting for a killer. And it seems Leo's initial newspaper reports may have put someone else in grave danger…  The Butcher of Berner Street is by Alex Reeve. 

My Name is ..............

My name is Gary Bell and I’m a barrister. I haven’t always been a barrister. My life has gone through many phases. I started off as a coal miner, following in the footsteps of my father. Next I did a succession of jobs – apprentice mechanic, fork lift truck driver; bricklayer; pork pie production line worker and fireman, before getting in trouble with the police for fraud and going to prison for a spell. I was pretty useless and feral. A petty criminal and football hooligan incapable of holding down a job. My father had abandoned the family years before. My mother had sadly died of cancer. I was estranged from my siblings, sleeping rough during the last year of my teens. Into my twenties it all changed. I'd tried to be like Frank Sinatra and do it my way, but I came up short. I realised that to make anything of myself in life I needed an education. 

I went to college to do my O and A levels, then onto University to read law. After that it was bar school, pupillage, tenancy and thirty years at the bar. There are several types of barrister. My type isn’t the most lucrative, but it’s the most exciting, crime. They’ve yet to make a TV series about ‘Rumpole of the Chancery Courts’ or ‘Kavanagh Tax QC’. That’s another important bit. Only around 14% of barristers become QC’s. In crime that means you get to deal with the most serious cases, the most gruesome murders or serious frauds. I was fortunate enough to be appointed a QC in 2012. I’ve always had itchy feet. Always wanted to squeeze every last drop from this short time we spend on earth. During my life as a barrister I’ve also become a qualified pilot, was an award-winning stand-up comedian, have written for several newspapers and have a column in the Spectator, presented my own TV show on BBC 1 and now I’ve turned my hand to crime writing. 

After the success of my autobiography, ‘Animal QC’ (Animal being my football hooligan nickname and QC my current title) I was approached by a film producer friend, Pete Czernin, who put me in touch with a literary agent Eugenie Furniss. She introduced me to another agent, Rory Scarfe. Rory had a brilliant young  writer on his books, Scott Kershaw, and he suggested that Scott and I collaborate to write a crime thriller. We met and got on famously and the net result is our first book, Beyond Reasonable Doubt. The second book, County Lines, is currently being written. 

The principle character, Elliott Rook, is loosely based on me. I had wanted him to be dashing and thin, but Scott kept me grounded insisting he was shambling and fat. After thirty years at the criminal bar, being involved in cases incorporating just about every crime from shoplifting to mass murder, I’ve a wealth of material to weave into the Rook stories based on real cases. Most of the anecdotes and scenarios in the books actually happened. Only the names have changed. 

The Bar is a fantastic profession. You very rarely work in the same court from case to case and it’s brilliant walking into a random robing room and encountering old friends you’ve known and worked with for decades. It’s not like the public perception, an ancient, stuffy profession. In my life I’ve been sacked as a fireman, a bricklayer and a fork lift truck driver at Asda for having a criminal conviction and therefore being too dishonest to put out fires, lay bricks or load pallets onto lorries, but when I applied to become a barrister, having declared my conviction, the message from my Inn, the Inner Temple, was that everyone was entitled to a second chance in life. 

But there is still much to be done. The Bar is working hard on diversity, ensuring we have more BAME and socially deprived barristers. Rook’s sidekick, Zara, illustrates the struggles to become a barrister. She is a gay, dual heritage (Pakistani and English) woman from a working class Midlands’ family struggling to make her way at the bar. 

It is a struggle to become a barrister. Not only is it a struggle it’s an unequal one, particularly for those without money or connections. I had to sleep rough in Lincoln’s Inn Fields for a while in my early days as an unpaid pupil barrister. But the greater the struggle the more the sense of achievement when you overcome barriers to success. My message to anyone with a dream is simple. If it’s an uneven playing field (which it will be) and therefore much harder for you than for others, don’t moan about it, try harder. If you have the ability and determination you’ll succeed, and that success will taste much sweeter than if it was given to you on a plate. 

Beyond Reasonable Doubtby Gary Bell is published by Raven Books on 13 June.

Elliot Rook QC is one of the greatest barristers of his generation. He is also a complete fraud. Elliot Rook is the epitome of a highly successful, old Etonian QC. Or so everyone believes. In fact, he is an ex-petty criminal with a past that he has spent decades keeping secret. Until now... An unidentified young woman of Middle Eastern origin has been found murdered on the outskirts of Rook's home town. Billy Barber - a violent football hooligan and white-supremacist - is accused of her murder. Barber insists that Rook must defend him. If Rook refuses, Barber will expose him, bringing crashing to the ground the life and career that Rook has spent his life building.