Calling Down the Storm

Description

April 1971. When DI Webb and DS Raymond receive an emergency call, a horrific scene awaits them. Susan Lang is lying on the ground, bleeding to death. Her husband Henry is sitting nearby, holding a large, blood-stained knife. In shock, Henry claims to have no memory of the events that led to his wife's death, leaving his barrister, Ben Schroeder, little to defend a potential charge of murder. Meanwhile, unknown to his strict Baptist wife Deborah, Mr Justice Conrad Rainer has a secret life as a highstakes gambler...

Born in 1946, Peter Murphy graduated from Cambridge University and pursued a career in the law in England, the United States and The Hague. He practised as a barrister in London for a decade, then took up a professorship at a law school in Texas, a position he held for more than twenty years. Towards the end of that period he returned to Europe as counsel at the Yugoslavian War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague for almost a decade. In 2007 he returned to England to take up an appointment as a judge of the Crown Court. He retired as Resident Judge and Honorary Recorder of Peterborough in 2015. Peter started writing fiction more than twenty years ago, but following his retirement from the bench he became a full-time author, often drawing on the many experiences of his former career. Two political thrillers about the American presidency: Removal and Test of Resolve were followed by eight legal thrillers in the Ben Schroeder series about a barrister practising in London in the 1960s and 1970s. Alongside those he also penned the light-hearted series of short story colllections featuring Judge Walden of Bermondsey in the 'Rumpole' tradition, based in part on his own experiences as a lawyer and judge, and recently published A Statue for Jacob, based on the true story of Jacob de Haven. Peter passed away in September 2022.

I enjoyed this book - the twists and turns in the plot were really good, and the story was well put together. I would definitely choose another book by this author -- Julie Hosford * Netgalley * In the pages of this novel, notorious historical figures like Lord Lucan rub shoulders with the complex characters of Murphy's fictional legal world: the clients and lawyers, the police and expert witnesses, and above all of them, the judge. There is time, too, to discuss the subtleties of psychology and the ethics of legal privilege, in a story in which the patient workings of justice compete with the gathering storm of a bloody tragedy -- Paul Magrath, Barrister What an interesting idea for a plot - this blurb had me hooked from the second I saw the press release! How great that the judge in a murder trial is almost as criminal as those he presides over in his courtroom!? * Emma The Little Book Worm * The writing is competent and confident -- Gill Chedgey * NudgeBooks.com *