Stitch Up
By William Mcintyre £8.99 SANDSTONE PRESS
DEFENCE lawyer Robbie Munro has a happy enough life. His only complaint is that business is slow. He reckons either the country is becoming more law-abiding or a cash-strapped police force just isn’t catching criminals any more. But at least his family life is good.
Then an old friend asks for advice, a man dies and another is released on bail. Everyday stuff. Except the friend wants to know how to commit murder, the dead man is the millionaire Robbie’s ex dumped him for and the bailed prisoner is a man his father put away for strangling children.
The friend doesn’t like his advice and vows to get even. His ex-wife wants him to investigate her fiancé’s death, no matter how that might damage his year-old marriage. And his father, an old-school cop, may just have stitched the child-killer up.
A lesser man would struggle to find lightness in such a string of calamities, but Robbie’s main defences in a career spent largely “inventing alternative scenarios” for the accused are his off-beat humour and willingness to go to lengths other lawyers would never consider.
William Mcintyre, as a partner in Scotland’s oldest law firm, is the kind of contact other crime writers hope to cultivate, using details only experts can provide. In this book and the three others in his The Best Defence series he cuts out the middle man, combining legal experience with undoubted writing talent.
Stitch Up takes murder, perversion of justice, big pharma, church politics, the eternal struggle between the right thing and the lawful thing and a bullheaded father-son relationship and wraps them up as rapid-fire entertainment. Right up to the last few pages, no one – not the lawyer, not the police, and not the murderer – has any idea how the separate cases will work out. Or come together!
For a wry insight into the Scottish legal system and those who occupy its corridors, cells and loopholes, Mcintyre is your man. This is a book you could read in one sitting and be content that when you paid your money to be entertained, justice was done! David Mclaughlan
Authentic detail only experts provide” can