Lee is a barrister but not one you would expect. A woman, young, from Caribbean origins, brought up in a ghetto part of London. She’s good at her work and is offered to take the high-profile case of a young millionaire playboy. This case will entangle her in a world of lies and abuse, threatening to endanger her personal life. Through a series of well-thought legal tricks, she finally can get out of the case and save her life. Thrilled to have read this book written twenty years ago but still so relevant. The legal details are fascinating and it conveys, until the end, real emotions and fears.
“She remembered what her pupil-master had told her, fresh out of law school, in that year between passing the Bar exams and being “let loose on the public”, as he put it: “First rule of criminal defence: if your lay client tells you he’s pleading not guilty, don’t go behind that. If all the evidence indicates that he did it, or if his defence sounds like a pack of lies, then you can advise him as his counsel what you think his chances are. But it doesn’t matter if you think he’s guilty. You’re not judge and jury. Unless he actually tells you he’s guilty, you’ll never know for sure, and not even then.”