Reviews

The Centenary of Women in Law at the Royal Courts of Justice and Celebrating a Century of Women in Law at the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple

• Personal Injury Pleadings Sixth Edition
• By Patrick Curran QC
• Publisher: Sweet & Maxwell (May 2019)
• ISBN: 9780414070776

Clarity is everything. The reason why this superb textbook has sailed triumphantly into its sixth edition is the ability of its author, Patrick Curran QC, to bring that essential quality to the table at all times. It demonstrates the necessary precision of proper pleadings and does so with real scholarship and excellent example. Sir John Mummery has identified the quality of this writing and he is right to do so.

The latest edition has 11 new chapters geared to today’s challenges in personal injury litigation and a complete revision of its structure and content. Valuable case notes are part of the mix and, for example, the way in which applications for relief from sanctions should be evidenced and pleaded. Even for those who do not stray often into its territory, it is a joy to use.

"The reason why this superb textbook has sailed triumphantly into its sixth edition is the ability of its author, Patrick Curran QC, to bring that essential quality to the table at all times"

Read also with joy the droll and sometimes colourful prefaces of previous editions, and the present delightfully nostalgic one (for the author has found in his old chambers, Farrar’s Building, a good place to revise this essential textbook; and long may his work thrive).

On the bench and out in the fields of play, judges and practitioners will find this an indispensable companion. For our judgments and our submissions can be built on solid rock and where we succeed, we have been buttressed by real erudition. Most of all, by clarity.

Reviewer: Nigel Pascoe QC is a silk at Pump Court Chambers and a member of the Counsel Editorial Board.

• Marked for Death
• Tony Kent
• Elliott & Thompson Ltd, Paperback edition (July 2019)
• ISBN 978-1783964499
  

I must confess to a weakness for a ‘grab-you-by-the-throat-won’t-let-go-only-one-of-us-is-getting-out-of-here-alive’ kind of thriller. Of its genre this is one of the very best. The natural child of Michael Connolly and John Grisham with a dark sprinkling of Ian Rankin.

The murder of a former Lord Chief Justice leads Michael Devlin QC and his partner Sarah Truman into the helter-skelter pursuit of the killer. Whilst Devlin is holding down his day job in some brilliantly realised courtroom scenes at the Old Bailey (I may well be stealing the cell-site cross-examination) Sarah Truman pursues hers as an investigative journalist who is onto the killer.

What follows is the drawing together of apparently disparate threads to create a very satisfying whole. The plot sprints along and caused the first genuine 3am ‘got to find out how this is going to end’ moment in many years.

The murder of a solicitor and then horrific events closer to home begin to reveal the identity of a killer who is, at every turn, many steps ahead of his pursuers. A genuinely clever psychopath has never been more realistically or chillingly realised.

The plot avoids narrative clichés and the twist is both brilliantly delivered and utterly unforeseen.

In this, his second book, Tony Kent has created a memorable villain worthy of Thomas Harris and yet grounded in a world completely familiar to those of us who work in the criminal justice system. His protagonists, in particular Devlin (with his flaws) and his erstwhile pupil supervisor, are definitely people I used to drink with in the Devereux.

This realism is no surprise. Tony Kent is a barrister of some 17 years who will be well known to practitioners in London and South Eastern Circuiteers, although not by the nom de plume. His first book, Killer Intent, was a bestseller and selected for the Zoe Ball Book Club. Marked for Death is darker and may well leave the readership of the Richard and Judy Book Club (for which it has been selected) a tad traumatised but it is an excellent addition to my favourite genre.

Reviewer: Craig Rush is a barrister at 2 Bedford Row.