Writer Beware: Turning Copyright on Its Head: The UK’s Proposed AI Copyright Exception

 Writer Beware: Turning Copyright on Its Head: The UK’s Proposed AI Copyright Exception

Lesa's Book Critiques: Winners and Off to the U.K. Giveaway

 Lesa's Book Critiques: Winners and Off to the U.K. Giveaway

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Summary Justice by William Brodrick

William Brodrick is a British novelist. He was first an Augustinian friar and then became a practicing barrister. His debut legal thriller The Sixth Lamentation received critical acclaim and his third book A Whispered Name won the CWA Gold Dagger for Best Book. Under the pen name John Fairfax he has written four legal thrillers with William Benson as an remarkable criminal barrister. The first book in the series is Summary Justice (Little Brown UK, 2018), which opens with Benson being convicted for a murder he didn’t commit. He decides to become a barrister in order to prove his own innocence after he manages to be released.

Some 12 years later he has completed legal training and is leading the defense in his first murder case. The case he is defending is remarkably similar to his own. Sarah Collingstone was seen arguing with Andrew Bealing, who was later found murdered. Benson was convicted after his opponent in a pub altercation was killed. Benson’s intensity and focus gives him unexpected advantages in the courtroom; he was not thought to have a chance against his more experienced opposing counsel.

After his training, he approached one legal chamber after another to obtain practical experience and he was turned down by nearly every one. Few lawyers want to have anything to do with him, believing a convicted felon to be a blot on their profession. Two or three have chosen to help him, and they are treated as rogues and pariahs by their peers. Benson is shunned and insulted at every turn, in and out of the courtroom.

I learned a great deal about the method by which someone becomes a barrister or a solicitor in England, something I had not previously considered. The ethics of the legal profession is a major theme here, resulting in a really unusual legal thriller. In addition to the ordinary courtroom scenes, which are expected, this book asks if someone who has been convicted of violating the laws of the land should be allowed to uphold those laws.

This is a very good thriller with an unexpected philosophical streak. Readers of U.S. legal thrillers may find it slow-going while they figure out the finer points surrounding the legal profession that are so important to the plot. The U.S. system is different enough not to be terribly useful here. For committed fans of legal thrillers.

·         Publisher: ‎Little, Brown UK; 1st Edition (May 29, 2018)

·         Language: ‎English

·         Hardcover: ‎304 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎1408708728

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-1408708729 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2023 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: M, King's Bodyguard by Niall Leonard

M, King's Bodyguard by Niall Leonard (Pantheon, 2021) is based on the biography of William Melville by Andrew Cook (M: MI5's First Spymaster [Tempus, 2004]) and the autobiography of Gustav Steinhauer (Steinhauer The Kaiser's Master Spy [John Lane, 1930]). Melville was the founder of England’s MI5 and the model for Ian Fleming’s character called M. Steinhauer became the head of the British section of Germany’s Intelligence Service. At the time of this fictionalized account, Melville was head of Scotland Yard’s Special Branch and Steinhauer was the Kaiser's bodyguard.

It is January 1901 and the United Kingdom is undergoing cataclysmic change: Queen Victoria is dying. Ascending to the throne at the age of 18 in 1837, most people could not remember a time when she was not their queen. Prince Albert, the Prince of Wales, calls Melville to Osbourne House, where the family is gathered, to enlist his assistance for the arrival of Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, Victoria’s grandson and Albert’s nephew. There Melville meets Steinhauer.

Plans for the funeral have been in place for years. Melville’s job is to ensure the anarchists running rampant in Europe do not converge on London and assassinate any of the crowned heads paying their final respects. That many coveted targets in one highly visible location would be irresistible to any dissident worthy of the name, and Melville knows it. When he receives word of a credible plot to kill the Kaiser, his clueless supervisor declines to provide back-up staff so Melville enlists Steinhauer’s support instead. Locating and neutralizing a nameless radical revolutionary proved more challenging than Melville expected. The would-be killer leads Melville and Steinhauer on a chase across London from safe house to safe house, into a high-class bordello, through a muddy river, around the public gasworks, and down subway tunnels.

This fast-moving and action-filled narrative describes the people and the city of 1901 in exquisite detail, conveying authentic sights, sounds, and smells of a place from more than 100 years ago. Leonard certainly did his research; the book has a sense of immediacy I would not have expected in an historical account. I especially liked the description of Melville sailing through the air during an explosion. The writing is wonderful.

Hints of the war to come are evident even in 1901. While Melville is forced to rely on Steinhauer, he never really trusts him, aware of the underlying discord between the new King Edward and the Kaiser. Later on in their lives they become adversaries. The final pages of the book lay the groundwork for Melville’s career in what would become MI5 as well as for a sequel to this very fine historical thriller. I am looking forward to it.

 

·                     Publisher: ‎ Pantheon (July 13, 2021)

·                     Language: ‎ English

·                     Hardcover: ‎ 272 pages

·                     ISBN-10: ‎ 1524749052

·                     ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1524749057

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2022

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

The Rap Sheet: Lover’s Big Leap

 The Rap Sheet: Lover’s Big Leap

Euro Crime: New Releases - September 2021

 Euro Crime: New Releases - September 2021

Bitter Tea and Mystery: She Came Back: Patricia Wentworth

Bitter Tea and Mystery: She Came Back: Patricia Wentworth: Although I read some books in the Miss Silver mystery series when I was much younger, I returned to the series in 2017, first reading The Cl...