Must-read crime fiction that does justice to the justice system, chosen by the Secret Barrister
The practising (secret) criminal barrister and writer recommends six compelling reads that take us into the realities of criminal justice.
Often when we hear criminal justice discussed by politicians or the media, it is rendered in two dimensions; infantile binaries of Good and Bad, with characters falling firmly on one side of the divide. ‘Good Police and Prosecutors Catch Bad Criminal, Bad Criminal Goes To Prison’ is the dominant paradigm, and the narrative rarely diverges.
As a criminal barrister who each day prosecutes and defends in the criminal courts, I have long found this conception frustrating and bizarre. Because the truth is far more interesting and compelling than our daily purveyors of non-fiction allow for. Criminal justice, and the characters and stories that exist within, encompasses every aspect of the human condition: fear and loss; hope and joy; mercy and vengeance; truth and deceit. It traverses every nuance and complexity that defines our behaviour. Criminal justice is rarely, if ever, a neatly-packaged narrative of heroes and villains.
So it is that, to mangle a cliché, it is fiction to which we are often better turning for the truth, wherein the humanity that I see each day pulsing through the justice system is more reliably reflected. I have therefore selected six books which, in their own different ways, speak to the truth of what justice systems do, and what it means.
Find more gripping reads in our pick of the best crime fiction books.
The Last Trial
by Scott Turow
The recent television adaptation of Presumed Innocent brought Scott Turow’s Kindle County to a new audience, but criminally omitted the character of Sandy Stern, the legendary defence attorney whose storied career is chronicled throughout Turow’s novels. ‘The Last Trial’ recounts Sandy’s final case - defending an old friend accused of murder, fraud and insider-trading. The exploration of Sandy’s struggle to reconcile his faith in the process of justice with his growing doubts about his friend’s innocence captures perfectly the internal conflict with which many lawyers grapple.
The System
by Ryan Gattis
The System is a dazzling and immersive portrait of a 1990s gang-related murder and the trial of the two men, Wizard and Dreamer, subsequently arrested by the police. It is narrated from a variety of perspectives – defendants, victims, families and state professionals – offering a devastatingly accurate, panoramic perspective of a criminal justice system in action, and challenging the faith we instinctively place in our institutions to act with the honour on which our system depends.
Girl A
by Abigail Dean
Lex Gracie escaped the horrors of her family home at the age of 15, and gained nationwide notoriety as 'Girl A'. Now a successful lawyer, she is pulled back into the life, and people, she left behind. This is not merely a gripping crime thriller, but a devastatingly accurate psychological profile of those who have been through the criminal justice system as victims, achieving what the system presents as “justice”, but struggling to find closure decades later.
A Calamity of Souls
by David Baldacci
In 1968 in southern Virginia, Jack Lee – a white lawyer with little interest in civil rights or standing up against the prevailing climate of racism – teams up with Desiree DuBose, a Black lawyer from Chicago, to defend a Black man accused of the murder of an elderly white couple. While a compelling courtroom drama in its own right, the book’s beauty lies in its deconstruction of what happens when the system of justice itself is corrupted by flawed ideals, and how our notions of fairness and justice are built on assumptions that cannot – today as much as ever – be taken for granted.
Finding Sophie
by Imran Mahmood
In truth, I could have compiled this list entirely of Imran Mahmood novels, such is the power of his writing and the incision with which he reflects the criminal justice system. But his fourth novel, Finding Sophie, I found particularly affecting. It is told from the perspectives of two parents desperately trying to locate their missing teenage daughter, interspersed with haunting flash-forwards to the criminal trial of somebody – we do not know who or for what. The way in which Mahmood demonstrates how the most basic human instincts – in this case, a parent’s love for a child – can drag blameless, ordinary lives into the gears of the justice system is simply masterful.
The Killing Kind
by Jane Casey
Every defence lawyer’s worst nightmare is brought vividly to life in this compulsive thriller, which charts barrister Ingrid Lewis’s attempts to escape the attentions of a stalker whom she successfully defended in court. Criminal barristers represent daily the most dangerous people in our society, and to do so we erect a mental barrier between our professional and personal lives, which for the most part is never breached. What happens when it is, and when we are confronted with the direct consequences of our professional decisions, is the discomfiting theme expertly teased throughout.
Don't miss the first legal thriller from the Secret Barrister, writing as S. J. Fleet
The Cut Throat Trial
by S. J. Fleet
When an elderly teacher is murdered on New Year's Eve, the prosecution of three seventeen-year-old boys for the crime becomes the biggest trial of the year. Each boy denies it. Each points the finger at the other two – the 'cut-throat defence'. Each has their own barrister whose only job is to persuade the jury of the innocence of their client. But one of them must be guilty. And they’re up against a prosecutor who needs to win the case, no matter the cost.
