Meet the Characters of Summary Justice
William Benson. Son of a Norfolk fisherman. A philosophy student until his murder conviction ended his studies. But the experience of his own trial has revealed to him where asking big questions really matters: in a courtroom. He’s fought his way to the Bar. He’s determined to survive even though he’s an outcast, distrusted by the Bar and the Bench. His inner battles are worse. Traumatised by prison, he can’t even lock the door to a room. He’s estranged from his brother who’s convinced of his guilt. His companion at home is a cat. He can’t get Tess out of his mind; and he can’t let himself get anywhere near him. Because if he did, he’d have to tell her the secrets that keep him locked away.
Tess de Vere. An Irish born English educated solicitor. She’s a hot-shot at Coker & Dale in London. She sends him big cases because she believes he has big talent. But that creates big problems for her, and puts Benson’s story under a spotlight. Her only way out is to prove that Benson is innocent. It’s a secret quest in breach of a promise to leave his past alone.
Archie Congreve. Benson’s clerk and convener of the Tuesday Club. Bankrupted the family fishmonger business in Spitalfields and did two years for tax evasion. Without a future until he joins forces with Benson and hands over the keys to an abandoned building. Congreve Chambers becomes the laughing stock of the legal world, until Archie pulls in the work and Benson starts performing.
Sally Martindale. Tess’s best friend. An English eccentric. Runs an art gallery but earns money on the side as a graphologist. She’s flighty with moral depth. Helps Tess with her investigation, adding conviction when she loses confidence.
Dr Abasiama Agozino. Benson’s counsellor. The only person who knows the whole truth and who is helping Benson cope with the past and the future.
Other characters
Molly Robson. Benson’s typist and advisor. After forty years typing top QCs opinions, she’s become a legal expert in her own right. Made redundant from her previous chambers because she kept correcting the work of her employers.
Helen Camberley QC. The barrister who defended Benson in his murder trial. She later trained him in the craft. Proposed to give him a room in her chambers until the other tenants rebelled. She remains on hand to guide her protégé.
Richard Merrington MP. Justice secretary. Called upon by the Harbeton family and the tabloid press to prevent Benson from practising at the Bar. Humiliated by a failure to pass the relevant legislation, he’s authorised a private investigation into Benson, looking for dirt that would bring his career to an end. At home, he’s opposed by Benson’s most vocal fans, his wife, Pamela, and his son, David. At work, his greatest challenge is the spiralling crisis in the prison system.
Paul Harbeton. The man found dead in Soho after a fight with Benson. Benson’s victim if he’s guilty. Someone else’s victim if he’s innocent.
—
Summary Justice is out on 13/07/2017 in Paperback.
The last time Tess de Vere saw William Benson she was a law student on work experience. He was a twenty-one year old, led from the dock of the Old Bailey to begin a life sentence for murder. He'd said he was innocent. She'd believed him.
Sixteen years later Tess overhears a couple of hacks mocking a newcomer to the London Bar, a no-hoper with a murder conviction, running his own show from an old fishmonger's in Spitalfields. That night she walks back into Benson's life. The price of his rehabilitation - and access to the Bar - is an admission of guilt to the killing of Paul Harbeton, whose family have vowed revenge. He's an outcast. The government wants to shut him down and no solicitor will instruct him. But he's subsidised by a mystery benefactor and a desperate woman has turned to him for help: Sarah Collingstone, mother of a child with special needs, accused of slaying her wealthy lover. It's a hopeless case and the murder trial, Benson's first, starts in four days. The evidence is overwhelming but like Benson long ago, she swears she's innocent. Tess joins the defence team, determined to help Benson survive. But as Benson follows the twists and turns in the courtroom, Tess embarks upon a secret investigation of her own, determined to uncover the truth behind the death of Paul Harbeton on a lonely night in Soho.
True to life, fast-paced and absolutely compelling, Summary Justice introduces a new series of courtroom dramas featuring two maverick lawyers driven to fight injustice at any cost.
