Verbal

Description

A clever, accomplished Cambridge graduate with a good job and an attentive lover, Imogen Lester seems to have the world at her feet. But when her parents are murdered abroad while working for the Diplomatic Service, she is suddenly thrown headlong into a murky world of espionage and organised crime. When she is charged with drug trafficking, even Ben Schroeder's skills may not be enough to save her -unless a shadowy figure from Ben's past can survive long enough to unmask a web of graft and corruption... 'Murphy's clever legal thriller revels in the chicanery of the English law courts of the period.' - Independent 'No one writes with more wit, warmth and insight about the law and its practitioners than Peter Murphy.' - David Ambrose, playwright and novelist 'It is to the author's credit that this fiction sometimes reads and feels like a dramatic re-telling of a real event.' - Crime Review 'Murphy paints a trenchant picture of establishment cover-up, and cannily subverts the cliches of the legal genre in his all-too-topical narrative.' - Financial Times

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.

Peter Murphy has created in barrister Ben Schroeder a character whose adventures in and out of court hold a mirror up to life at the bar in the 1960s and 70s -- Paul Magrath * ICLR * a rich, complex tale of organized crime and corruption, peopled by characters I wanted to cheer or boo -- Lizzie * promotingcrime.blogspot.com *