Courtroom Theatrics by Guy Morpuss

The actor Philip Glenister (Life on Mars and Mad Dogs) advised his daughter: ‘If you want to be an actor and earn some money, become a barrister.’

With the state of legal aid, most criminal barristers would question the wisdom of that advice. It does however highlight the close links between acting and the law. Many barristers would like to make the opposite journey and be treading the boards in the West End.

A trial is rather like a play. We wear our costumes. We perform to the audience. And on a good day no one gets murdered.

That is the tag line for my new novel, A Trial in Three Acts, where the worlds of the theatre and law collide. An actress is murdered live on stage, her head chopped off with a guillotine. Suspicion falls on all cast members, but it is her ex-husband, Hollywood superstar Leo Lusk, who is charged with her murder. At his Old Bailey trial, he is defended by English barrister Charles Konig KC, and New York trial lawyer Yara Ortiz. They realise that the clues to the murder lie in the play itself, and that to save their client they need to identify the real murderer.

When, more than thirty years ago, I started out as a barrister, I thought that winning cases was about persuading the judge that you were right on the law. Over time, and particularly after I became a KC, I began to realise that the law has very little to do with the outcome of most trials. In truth barristers win cases by telling the judge a better story than the other side. Every trial is a one-off performance for an audience of one. Judges are human, and you win by showing the judge why they should want to decide in your client’s favour. To borrow from the US legal philosopher Jerome Frank, laws are merely the formal clothes in which judges dress up their decisions.

So, to be a good barrister you need to be a good actor: to be able to put on a performance, to convince the judge that you believe that your client is in the right.

Of course, there are differences between the stage and the courtroom. As barristers we cannot make things up; we have to work with the facts that we are given. And unlike theatre, there is no script. A trial is an improv performance where the underlying material is constantly changing. It is a play where your fellow ‘cast members’ (the witnesses, the judge, your own client) can suddenly start wandering off in unexpected directions or making up their own lines. I have seen trials lost with a single bad answer in cross-examination.

It was a film adaptation of an Agatha Christie play that inspired me to become a barrister: Witness for the Prosecution, starring Charles Loughton and Marlene Dietrich. I remember being transfixed by the skill with which Loughton, as the defence QC, held centre-stage in court, moulding the jury to his will. I wanted to do the same. Little did I realise that it was Loughton who was actually being manipulated by Dietrich.

An excellent new production of the play in London has blurred the lines between theatre and law. It is set as though in a courtroom, and members of the audience get to sit in the jury box and decide the fate of the accused. It is very cleverly done.

In writing A Trial in Three Acts I have tried to achieve a similar blurring of the lines between theatre and courtroom: my homage to the Queen of Crime. And like Christie, I have provided readers will all the same clues as are available to Charles Konig KC – buried, of course, amongst a multitude of red herrings. The book contains a number of scenes from the play in which the murder takes place. Study these scenes carefully, and you may spot the solution.

I will provide one further clue. Charles Konig KC solves the crime not by identifying the murderer, but by working out how the murder was carried out. Readers can do the same.

Happy hunting. Break a leg.

A Trial in Three Acts by Guy Morpuss (Viper Books) Out Now

A trial is rather like a play. We wear our costumes. We perform to the audience. And on a good day no-one gets murdered. Six nights a week the cast of the smash-hit play Daughter of the Revolution performs to a sold-out audience. A thrilling story of forbidden marriage and a secret love child, the critics say it'll run for years. That is until one night the third act ends not in applause but in death, when leading lady Alexandra Dyce is beheaded live on stage. Every cast member has a motive, but it is the dead woman's co-star - and ex-husband - Hollywood legend Leo Lusk who is charged with the crime. When defence barrister Charles Konig is brought in last minute, he knows this ought to be the case of a lifetime. But Charles would rather be on his holiday trekking up K2, and he isn't interested in celebrities, especially ones that seem to be mysteriously trying to derail their own defence. But as he and his co-counsel New York lawyer Yara Ortiz sift through the evidence, it becomes clear that clues may lie in the play itself. And that Charles's only chance of victory is to identify the real murderer...

More information about the author and his books can be found on his website.  He can also be found on 'X' @guymorpuss.

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.

Striving for Verisimilitude by James Woolf

Achieving verisimilitude in your work is the Holy Grail for Crime and Thriller writers, because as soon as the reader gets a whiff that something doesn’t stack up, doubt will begin spreading like Covid 19 on a cruise ship. 

I first became aware of the effort that some writers put in behind the scenes to achieve verisimilitude when studying Wuthering Heights for A Level. I came across a small book which told me that almost every event in the novel’s thirty-one-year timeline could be precisely dated, or at least placed within a small window of time, even though relatively few dates are mentioned. The book printed a chronology, not dissimilar to the one shown here. I was fascinated by the idea of Emily Bronte working obsessively on these details, perhaps before she even began drafting the story in her tiny handwriting. It also intrigued me that she set her book some half a century before she was born. Was she seeking greater clarity or objectivity by doing so?

When writing my debut novel, Indefensible, I also used a table document, which in this case ran to forty-five pages. My chronology sets out (in columns headed with character names) the key points in their lives, and which chapter, if any, these events appear in. My novel is also set in the past, and my chronology contains a column for news events that were talking points at the time, such as the collapse of Barings bank or the declaration by Jonathan Aitken that he will “fight the cancer of twisted journalism with the simple sword of truth”. In Indefensible, every news event referred to is precisely dated within the narrative.

I went a good deal further than chronology, however. Indefensible follows a barrister, Daniel, who defends a man charged with a grisly murder at the Old Bailey and then becomes too close to his ex-client afterwards. With their permission, I included two clerks as characters in the novel, both with their real names and acting as they would have done in their professional lives almost thirty years ago. Bill Conner was the right-hand man to the legendary barrister, George Carman QC, who successfully defended Jeremy Thorpe in his attempted murder trial. Carman is also a minor character in my book. Bill was able to provide many details about his former head of chambers, such as his close attention to the earnings of other barristers in the same set, as each barrister paid a percentage of these towards running costs. As the highest earner of them all, Carman was naturally hit with the biggest deduction – something he was never happy about.

As well as people, I tried to ensure the authenticity of all locations in the book. I even included a flat I once shared with my brother in Hackney as the site of a murder. The property is arguably identifiable, so someone may get a surprise when reading! I was very keen not to trip up on forensic matters too. My novel opens with a report that a man’s head was seen being thrown into the River Thames. Eventually, when the head surfaces, a murder investigation begins. When researching the book, I spoke to David Tadd, a forensic expert whose team worked on many high-profile cases, including identifying the Grand Hotel bomber of 1984. David offered great advice about the state of decapitated heads that have been floating in rivers for rather too long. 

Moving on to objects and day-to-day clutter, I am not gifted with a great visual memory, but wanted to ensure that the things my characters use are not described generically or seem anachronistic. My favourite example of my over-the-top attention to detail was when I researched a 1990’s handbag which is used by a court reporter who becomes involved with my protagonist. I found the perfect one on eBay and bought it for my partner. I’ve been trying to persuade her to use it at the book launch in February.

My final thought on achieving verisimilitude concerns theme. Having worked in the legal sector for over twenty years, including running the ethical hotline for barristers, you might say I turned my day job into a novel. As well as being a legal thriller, Indefensible is also a discussion about professional boundaries and what can happen when they break down. My main character, Daniel, recommends to another barrister that he should phone the Bar Council but at times in the story he should have done so himself. I like to think that had he spoken to me when I was working on the hotline, he would have received sound advice.

Indefensible by James Woolf (Bloodhound Books) Out Now.

A lawyer crosses a dangerous line with a former client and discovers that some decisions are indefensible…Daniel, a criminal barrister, is working all hours on a sensational trial, defending a client he believes is wrongfully accused of a grisly murder. Determined to keep Rod out of prison, he begins to neglect his wife—and soon suspects she’s having an affair. After Daniel triumphs in court, the bond with his newly acquitted client grows even stronger. And when Rod offers Daniel a favour that he really shouldn’t accept, things take a catastrophic turn. Daniel realises the lethal consequence of his actions and now his dream case threatens to become his worst nightmare…

James Woolf can be found on X @WoolfJames

Nicola Williams on The Road to "Until Proven Innocent"

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?

In The St Hilda's Spotlight - Imran Mahmood

Name:- Imran Mahmood

Job:- Criminal and Civil Barrister and author

Twitter:- @imranmahmood777

Introduction:-

Barrister and author Imran Mahmood's first novel You Don't Know Me was published in 2017. It was also selected for the BBC Radio 2 Book Club Choice and was shortlisted for the Glass Bell Award in 2018. It was also longlisted in 2018 for the CWA Gold Dagger and the Theakstons Old PeculierCrime Novel of the year Award. It was also made into a BBC drama (to great aclaim) in 2021. His second book I Know What I Saw was published in 2021 and was one of The Times best thrillers of 2021. His most recent book is All I said Was True was published iin July 2022.

Current book? (This can either be the current book that you are reading or writing or both)

I have just delivered 3rd draft of book 4. It is about grief and regret as well (obviously) as murder! I loved writing this book and it’s the one I'm proudest of. I can't wait to see it out next year.

Favourite book?

This is a always To Kill a Mocking Bird. It deals with everything – race, class, poverty, wealth, slavery, human rights, power, justice, morality, truth, integrity, coming of age – the lot. A few other books try to do all of this but the genius of Harper Lee was that she told stories of horror through the lens of an innocent - child. The effect is devastating. 

Which two characters would you invite to dinner and why?

Staying with To Kill a Mockingbird I would like to have Atticus Finch and Scout round for a home-made curry!

How do you relax?

I write of course! And cook. Or if I have time I paint (badly) or do a little woodwork. I make things for the kids that they don’t have any appreciation for. 

Which book do you wish you had written and why?

I'm going to sidestep Harper Lee this time (because there is no way I could have written that). I’m going to say The First Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman for its modest sales!

Also, it displays a great understanding of the market. There’s a whole section of society (that read) but who find themselves totally invisible in culture. Osman realised that and boy did he make the most of it! Also it’s such a perfectly delivered mystery. Can't fault it.

What would you say to your younger self if you were just starting out as a writer?

Writing is very difficult. Reading is much easier. Just read.

What made you decide to write standalone novels as opposed to a series and would you write a series?

I had only intended to write the one book! I had no idea that when you write one – publishers and agents just expect you to carry on. There was no way to turn book 1 into a series so book 2 was a standalone. And by then I liked the idea of meeting new characters that I knew nothing about. I have since thought about a returnable series. I think it’s a lot of work despite the impression you get and it takes a long time (4 plus books I think) to establish a series. I don’t think I have the patience to do that

With Town and Country: Green Lanes to Mean Streets being the theme at St Hilda's this year, Where is your favourite town and where is your favourite country? Why have you chosen these?

London (which is about 100 towns really rather than one place). It’s my adoptive home (from Liverpool) and I love 2 things about it. That you can become anonymous in London very easily. And that the tolerance levels are so high (as a rule) that you can be any version of yourself that you want to be without (usually) ever attracting a second-look. I love that I sat on the Tube last week and someone wandered on wearing a tutu, a blonde Elsa wig to their waist, drinking beer from a Pringle can. She was probably in her sixties. Nobody batted an eye. I love that. The price of being left alone when you want to be left alone is often being left alone when you don’t. So it’s not a perfect city – but where is?

Favourite country – UK. Not a natural patriot. But the UK (despite everything) feels free and safe and there aren’t many places I could spend the rest of my life in. There’s always something to spoil a great country. Geographically/geologically/structurally? the USA has everything. Mountains, lakes, deserts, snow, beaches, big modern cities, slow lazy cities, canyons, waterfalls, huge national parks. But then – you know it has people like Trump in it. And a lot of guns! 

What are you looking forward to at St Hilda's?

Meeting so many new people after so much hiding away for the last 2 years!

All I Said Was True by Imran Mahmood (Bloomsbury Publishing PLC)

I didn't kill her. Trust me...When Amy Blahn died on a London rooftop, Layla Mahoney was there. Layla was holding her. But all she can say when she's arrested is that 'It was Michael. Find Michael and you'll find out everything you need to know.' The problem is, the police can't find him - they aren't even sure he exists. Layla knows she only has forty-eight hours to convince the police that bringing in the man she knows only as 'Michael' will clear her name and reveal a dangerous game affecting not just Amy and Layla, but her husband Russell and countless others. But as the detectives begin to uncover the whole truth about what happened to Amy, Layla will soon have to decide: how much of that truth can she really risk being exposed?

Why Timing is Everything by Tony Kent

 

It was New Year’s Eve 2019 as I settled down at my father-in-law’s dining room table in Cornwall, opened my laptop and began to write. We had driven from Buckinghamshire the day before - my wife Victoria and I, and our then 18-month old son Joseph - and we had arrived late on a dark and stormy December 30th.

New Year in Cornwall had become a tradition since Clive had bought the clifftop home five years earlier, and that tradition had quickly extended to my writing habits. My previous two books had both been started at this very table, each one a year apart. And so it was that for the third time, while every one else took an afternoon walk into town, I wrote the first words of a thriller.

Two hours later my family were back - wet and windswept from the picturesque fishing village of Looe - and the first two thousand words of Book Four were on the page. Tradition had been kept. My work was underway.

Over the next two months that book began to fly. I had spent my usual three-month ‘thinking’ period going about my day with the story percolating in my head. The clock was ticking - when is it not! - and so it was a relief that the story was coming so freely. But little did I know, there was a problem looming. You see, the book I was writing was about Joe Dempsey and his ISB team preventing a terrorist attack on North America. And the form of that attack? A weaponised virus, manufactured by a rogue East Asian state which would - once released - cause a pandemic to sweep across the continental United States.

How is that for timing, you might ask yourself. Because believe me, I did!

February came and went. 

‘It won’t be as bad as the scientists say’, I kept telling myself. I shared the hopelessly blind optimism of Boris Johnson, only in my case the consequences of being wrong were rather less severe. But wrong we both were and so, as I lay in my bed in early March 2020 with my first bout of what we were then still calling the coronavirus, I made a big decision: the pandemic - or the pandemic over which I had some control, at least - was going in the drawer.

It was not a difficult decision. As a writer, my barometer of what works and what does not is a simple question: am I entertained by this? Because if I am not, then neither will my readers. And rightly or wrongly, there was no way I could be entertained by a book about a fictionalised virus as people were dying world-wide from a real life version. So not a difficult decision. But still a big one: I had a deadline and I had a book to deliver.

What, then, to do? I racked my brain for an answer. The book I had ‘planned’ - in other words, the book I had thought about for several months, with plots and ideas growing off in various directions that would allow me to choose the right ones once the typing started - was now off limits, and I did not have another three months to spare thinking about a new one. I also did not have the freedom of any research trips. Travel was out of the question as the lockdowns tightened and so I had to set the plot somewhere I knew. But where? 

As a dilemma it left me hot under the collar. And that temperature gave me a direction.

In my life I have experienced two particular extremes of intense heat. The dry, sharp kind that I connect to my time spent in Qatar and Dubai. And the wet, humid heat of the Florida Keys. It was the feeling of the latter that I could not shake as I wrote the first chapter of No Way To Die; the sensation of a thin, cheap material sticking to the skin. It took my mind immediately to Key West, and that in turn led me to the docks. To wonder what could have passed through that weakened, under-policed underbelly over the years? What could have found its way through the party island and onto the continental United States via those incredible oversea highways?

It was then that two words came back to me. Two words which I had always intended to be the basis for a book some time in the future.

‘Dirty Bomb’.

It would be absurd to suggest that the setting and the two word ‘McGuffin’ was all I needed. And it would be a lie to claim that, from that point, the book wrote itself. It did not; it was a difficult, drawn-out process that restarted several times over, all set against the strangest times in which any of us have ever lived or - I hope - will ever live again.

But for all the effort that followed, those two words and that remembered sensation of sticky heat was where No Way To Die started. And all of it because of a tradition; all of it because I chose to start writing on December 31st 2019. Had I started it even two months earlier, the book I would not be promoting would have told a very different story about a fight to stop a pandemic sweeping across America. And let’s be honest; in 2021, who the hell would want to read that?

Proof, then, that timing really is everything.

No Way To Die by Tony Kent (Out Now) Elliott & Thompson

When traces of a radioactive material are found with a body in Key West, multiple federal agencies suddenly descend on the scene. This is not just an isolated murder - a domestic terrorist group is ready to bring the US government to its knees. The threat hits close to home for Agent Joe Dempsey when he discovers a personal connection to the group. With his new team member, former Secret Service agent Eden Grace, Dempsey joins the race to track down the bomb before it’s too late. But when their mission falls apart, he is forced to turn to the most unlikely of allies: an old enemy he thought he had buried in his past. Now, with time running out, they must find a way to work together to stop a madman from unleashing horrifying destruction across the country.

More information about Tony Kent and his books can be found on his website. You can also find him on Twitter @TonyKent_Writes and on Facebook.

©Book launch photographs Ayo Onatade

Death of "Rumpole" creator

Sir John Mortimer the creator of that curmudgeonly barrister Rumpole of the Bailey has died at the age of 85 after a long illness. Known mainly for the "Rumpole" series Sir John Mortimer was also a prodgious writer of books and screen plays. The character of Rumpole was played admirably by the late actor Leo McKern throughout its time on screen. His death is a great loss to those who have long admired his work.

Further information can be found here http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7833156.stm