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A Game of Proof, the first outing for Mr Vicary's Sarah Newby, a High Court
counsel.
Sarah Newby leaves school at 16 has a relationship with a lad who is slightly
older than her and they have a son. They get a council house but, as is the way with
so many of these relationships, it goes the wrong way.
Having no money and family life is not, after all, what he wants. He begins to hit her, and leaves. She turns back to School, then college and finally University and law
school.
While learning to become a lawyer she marries someone else, Bob, he is educated and a teacher. They have a daughter but Sarah is to busy becoming
the best at what she does to spend to much time with her children and Bob is
rising up the ladder as a teacher on his way to being a head teacher!
The setting is York, England and Sarah is defending a rapist. In fact, DI Terry Bateson who arrested Gary Harker believes that he is responsible for a series of rapes in the city and involved in one murder. The rape victim Sharon Gilbert is a mother and prostitute and is accusing her ex-lover, Harker, a brute of a bully, of breaking in to her home and raping her in front of her children ending by then stealing her jewellery.
In between defending this detestable human being Sarah's marriage appears to be on shaky ground, Simon her son from her first relationship is estranged from her Bob and Emily, her daughter with Bob and to cap it all there is an undercurrent between her and Terry Bateson too. Terry Bateson is a widower with two young daughters and a drop dead gorgeous Norwegian nanny. He was heading for promotion until his wife died at the hands of joy riders and now answers to a DCI Churchill whom he hates.
A Game of Proof begins as a complex chain of links between this group which looks as if nothing can keep them together other than the tangled lives they are drawn into as bit players in a tacky piece of theatre only for it to become more degrading, tacky and hurtful as one bit player after another gets the upper hand in the too-ing and fro-ing against the other in court and on the streets of York. Against the odds one man who you are sure is guilty, is found innocent, someone else is murdered and a family member is accused of murder and rape!
Again, like The Blood Upon The Rose, the first book I read from Vicary, this too was good, the pace was just right for a convoluted crime investigation and court room drama; dead ends in the investigations and the unique reason for the lack of clues in the rapes was pretty intriguing.
I was slightly disappointed with this one in that a number of easy spelling and grammatical errors were thrown throughout the book and in the Kindle store when you purchase it, it tells you it is 400 pages long; There are no page numbers on the Kindle itself and on the iPad it is 12520 pages long but only goes to 12518. Minor but irritating little things it has to be said. The plot and the pace were thoroughly enjoyable but marking it down on the presentation.
Reading Enjoyment: 4 out of 5
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5
Chapters: 44
Interesting. Both books will go into my kindle pile.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're feeling well enough to read and blog.
Hi Julia, Tim does write a really involved story and the first one set in Ireland at the turn of the Century, was excellent and so too was this, the first of three books in the Sarah Newby Trials is really good as well.
ReplyDeleteJust wish he had taken a bit more care in proof reading!