The Trial: The No. 1 bestselling whodunit by Britain’s best-known criminal barrister

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That was all a long time ago now though. Royal protection was his past; serious crime was his present and, God willing, his future. As he’d told Susanna Reid on the Good Morning Britain sofa when he was asked to talk through the police’s new crime strategy, it was an honour to go from protecting one individual who represented the values of our great society to protecting society itself. He grinned as he remembered how her eyes had shone with admiration as he’d delivered his solemn vow of service; God, he’d always fancied her. The producers had fancied him, too, offering him a regular slot that they were going to call ‘Good Cop Britain’, or something. He’d turned them down, of course; policing was much more valuable. A ridiculously entertaining whodunit. The Trial is sharp, witty and has a huge amount of heart' Tom Hindle Really good. . . Nicely paced with characters that are fully formed, I hope there's more to come from Adam' Press Assocation Well, I’d advise him to get someone other than me to apply for his bail,’ said Adam, chinking his bottle with Rupert’s. ‘I’ve had another stinker today.’

Oh, right, yes, that’s all sorted,’ said Adam. ‘I wrote in the card “Never again, darling” like you asked…’Good, good,’ said Jonathan. ‘Did you add the bit about how I miss her milky thighs, or did we decide that was a bit much?’ He would go on a day trip to a stately home, for instance, “and think that it was preposterous that I didn’t live there.” He created his own identity, his own voice, with his clipped tones – “I describe myself as being mugged by a Mitford” – and I can picture Rinder as a sophisticated teenage raconteur amid bewildered school friends. “I didn’t suit the condition of childhood at all well,” he says. “I just thought the whole thing was pointless.” He used to enjoy listening to his mum’s friends complain about their difficult relationships, and although he was fairly popular, his best friend at school was the school nurse. Growing up with my incredibly emotionally literate mum has deprived me of a good five chapters of an autobiography

Proud of his roots in the Jamaican community of working-class Birmingham, Bobby had come to the Bar when racism was casually deployed and widely accepted within the profession. Against the odds, he was now one of its leading lights, and it had been Bobby’s incredibly inspiring speech delivered at Adam’s school as part of an outreach scheme that had brought him here, to Stag Court. Adam had known, ever since what had happened to his dad all those years ago – but now wasn’t the time to think about all that – that he’d wanted to do something that would make the world a fairer place. But it wasn’t until Bobby and his talk on the urgency of creating a justice system that reflected the dignity of those who used it that a career in the law had seemed a realistic possibility. Hundreds of hours of study later, a ham-fisted attempt to make himself a whole new person, and a determined vow to keep the past in a box where it belonged, here he was, a pupil in Bobby’s chambers. Surely now was the time to try some ‘networking’ that might actually matter? Adam Green is on his first murder case. Meanwhile his mother is popping round to his flat to put food in the freezer and trying to match him up with lots of unsuitable women. He has to focus on work, because his latest case is his last chance to prove himself and to get a position in his firm. Unfortunately, the leading barrister thinks that the case is a dead loss. Career criminal Jimmy Knight is accused of killing hero policeman Grant Clivedon, and with both motive and opportunity this seems like an open and shut case. However, Adam isn't so sure that Jimmy is guilty, and is determined to defend him to the best of his ability, despite the lead barrister's reservations. Adam had almost forgotten. Jonathan had rung frantically first thing that morning insisting there was an ‘emergency’ and he needed Adam to send flowers to his mistress, Allegra, as a matter of urgency. In 2010, Rinder went to the Turks and Caicos Islands as counsel to a team investigating and prosecuting allegations of fraud and corruption. Bored at the weekends, he started writing scripts. He worked with a production company and went to meet a commissioning editor at ITV. She thought his script was terrible – but she liked Rinder and asked if he would do his own Judge Judy-type reality court show.

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Like ‘networking event’, ‘building commercial relationships’ was one of Tony’s favourite new phrases. He ’d left school at sixteen and had started making a living in the wheeler-dealer world of chambers in the 1980s, when clerks had needed to do little more than answer the phone and watch the money roll in. But his commercial instincts were as sharp as his suits, and he knew those days were long gone. Tony believed Stag Court needed to get corporate if it was going to survive, and was on a one-man mission to drag his creaking chambers into the brave new world. The press and public all seemed to agree on one thing: there was only one thing worse than the murder of a police officer, and that was the murder of a police officer who was also a minor celebrity. Maybe ‘celebrity’ was the wrong word; Cliveden hadn’t exactly courted the media’s attention – he’d turned down Strictly ‘at least four times’, according to this particular breathless Sun write-up. But he’d nevertheless found a place in the nation’s psyche, somewhere between national treasure and bastion of society. In an age of influencers and reality stars, Cliveden represented real heroism, duty and integrity; he had been, in short, everything the British thought their public servants should be. Adam had only been eleven when Cliveden had thrown himself between the Queen and that madman with a gun, but he still remembered how his own mother had wept at the grainy footage of the baby-faced officer prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice. Rinder still practises law to the extent that he lectures, offers advice to some organisations and mentors young barristers. But he seems more keen to use his profile to highlight issues he cares about. “The reason I make documentaries is because I’m convinced, especially with social media, that political points of view have moved from the logical to the emotional hemisphere of the brain. That’s exacerbated by echo chambers.” People with an opposing view, he says, “interfere with your sense of identity and safety. So how can you have a conversation with goodwill?” He wants more listening, “to say: ‘I hear you’, and mean it. To say: ‘Let me tell you a story.’” I’d love to read about Adam again, his character is excellent and I’d also enjoy seeing if his lovely mum gets any closer in her quest to get him wed!

The chapters are interspersed with transcripts of telephone calls and messages between Adam and his "typical Jewish mother", who is determined to marry Adam off to a nice Jewish girl and ensure he is eating properly. This adds a little humour to the story and also provides a closer look into Adam and why he wants to be a barrister. No, no, no, I don’t mean that,’ Jonathan said, waving away Adam’s words like a bad smell. ‘I mean, how did you get on with the flowers?’ This is a book that takes you to the dark heart of the criminal justice system. They're all here - the good, the bad, the innocent and the guilty. I haven't enjoyed a legal thriller this much since Grisham's The Firm' Tony Parsons The Trial is whip-smart, stylish and gripping, both murder mystery and courtroom drama, shot through with tension, humour and a dark dissection of corruption, status and justice' Gilly Macmillan

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a matronly woman....wore a polka dot skirt" which in the next sentence is described as "gaudily patterned" There’s a moment where you realise that what you’re doing has the most profound value to uphold democracy under the rule of law’ … Rinder on ITV’s Judge Rinder. Photograph: ITV But he is perhaps best-known for his long-running daytime TV show Judge Rinder, which developed from his proper career as a barrister. Now, in a bid to show the fiction-reading public the inner workings of the courts of law, Rinder has written the first of two novels featuring a lightly Jewish barrister, Adam Green, as his alter ego. I say “lightly Jewish”, because in general, the characters would have worked even if Rinder had set the whole Jewish bit aside. There is, however, a series of comedy phone calls throughout the book, in which Green’s Awful Jewish Mother attempts to inflict various awful-sounding Jewish women on her son. Such conversations seemed to resonate with tropes rooted in the community of the 1950s or 1960s.

I was interested to read this book as I've seen this author in a lot of things and have always liked him. We meet Adam who is a pupil barrister. Along with his pupil master, they are given a case of defending a murder suspect, but Adam finds himself doing most of the work, believing in his client's innocence. This is a book that takes you to the dark heart of the criminal justice system. They are all here - the good, the bad, the innocent and the guilty. I have not enjoyed a legal thriller this much since Grisham's The Firm' Tony ParsonsThis was definitely a five star read for me, I just couldn’t put it down and that’s always a good sign!