Sir Gabriel Ward\u2019s daily movements are so predictable that his fellow King\u2019s Counsels can set their watches by them. So it\u2019s quite a shock when he emerges from his lodgings to find the body of Lord Norman Dunning, the Lord Chief Justice of England, on his doorstep. Constable Maurice Wright, who responds to a call for help, is able and alert, but his supervising officer, Sgt. Rayner, is so cavalier about fingerprints and other forensic traces that Wright fears the fatal stabbing will never be solved. So he\u2019s both gratified and relieved when Sir William Waring, Master Treasurer and head of the Inner Temple, appoints Gabriel to conduct his own investigation. Gabriel has no experience with matters of this sort and would very much prefer to be left alone to defend publisher Herbert Moore against charges brought by Susan Hatchings that he stole the pseudonymous manuscript for Millie the Temple Church Mouse that she accidentally left in his office one day, published it without her permission, and made a fortune. But Waring insists, Gabriel reluctantly agrees, and Wright improbably attaches himself as the novice sleuth\u2019s sidekick and even more improbably comes to appreciate Gabriel\u2019s talent for the job as the two bond ever more closely. Smith\u2019s first novel provides abundant red herrings, courtroom maneuvers, legal aphorisms (\u201cNothing is unarguable to a good lawyer\u201d), and an appealing atmosphere of stuffy proprieties upended by murder most foul before knitting the two cases together with professional dexterity.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sir Gabriel Ward\u2019s daily movements are so predictable that his fellow King\u2019s Counsels can set their watches by them. So it\u2019s quite a shock when he emerges from his lodgings to find the body of Lord Norman Dunning, the Lord Chief Justice of England, on his doorstep. Constable Maurice Wright, who responds to a call […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3329"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}