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Long-Shot Trial

Book 9 of the Arthur Beauchamp Series

by William Deverell

Arthur Beauchamp is mortified. A biography of his early career as a lawyer paints him as a dissolute womanizer. So he sweats over a memoir that he hopes will set the record straight about a headline murder case he fought as a starry-eyed young lawyer in 1966. A trial that seemed bound to mark him as a pathetic loser.

The background: a young housemaid is violently sexually assaulted by her employer, a callous, vindictive multi-millionaire. She shoots him point blank and tearfully confesses to police. It’s an open-and-shut case of first-degree murder ― or so it seems.

Haunted by having bungled his only previous murder case, Arthur is pressed into service by his firm to take on a sure loser. But the odds shift as the trial speeds through explosive twists and turns.

While writing his memoir, Arthur learns that it’s not easy to raise a defence against his social gaffes and booze-induced sex scandals, especially as he runs afoul of the quirky characters who inhabit his supposedly idyllic Garibaldi Island.

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Publisher: ECW Press

Date: 2024

ISBN: 9781770417540

Location: Gulf Islands, British Columbia

Sub-genres: Humor , Legal , Coastal

About The Author

William Deverell is a Canadian novelist best known for his award‑winning legal crime fiction, beginning with his 1979 debut Needles and continuing through his long‑running Arthur Beauchamp series. Deverell created CBC's Street Legal, one of Canada's longest-running drama series.

More About William Deverell