My Review Of
Anatomy Of A Scandal
This took awhile for me to get into but once I did it unfolded beautifully. It read more like a mystery to me. The plot was well developed as were the characters although I admit I was not overly fond of them. I loved to hate some of the characters in this book. I did have a hard time getting through some parts of this book but it was a solid read for me. It really brings into question how much would you cover up and or stand by your spouse if you think or know that they are guilty of an awful crime.
James was not one of my favorite characters and I thought Sophie needed a backbone at times. The writing was superb, the plot did keep me interested and on my toes. I look forward to this authors next book.
Read An Excerpt:
My wig slumps on my desk where I have tossed it. A beached
jellyfish. Out of court, I am careless with this crucial part of
my wardrobe, showing it the opposite of what it should command:
respect. Handmade from horsehair and worth nearly
six hundred pounds, I want it to age; to accrue the gravitas I
sometimes fear I lack. For the hairline to yellow with years
of perspiration, the tight, cream curls to relax or to grey with
dust. Nineteen years since I was called to the Bar, my wig is
still that of a conscientious new girl – not a barrister who has
inherited it from her, or more usually his, father. That’s the
sort of wig I want: one dulled with the patina of tradition,
entitlement and age.
I kick off my shoes: black patent courts with gold braid
on the front, shoes for a Regency fop; for Parliament’s Black
Rod; or a female barrister who delights in the history, the
rigmarole, the sheer ridiculousness of it all. Expensive shoes
are important. Chatting with fellow counsel or clients, with
ushers and police, we all look down from time to time so as
not to appear confrontational. Anyone who glances at my
shoes sees someone who understands this quirk of human
psychology and who takes herself seriously. They see a
woman who dresses as if she believes she will win.
I like to look the part, you see. To do things properly.
Female barristers can wear a collarette: a scrap of cotton and
lace that acts like a bib – a false front that goes just around
the neck – and that costs around thirty pounds. Or they can
dress as I do: a white collarless tunic with a collar attached
by collar studs to the front and back. Cuff links. A black wool
jacket and skirt or trousers; and – depending on their success
and seniority – a black wool or wool and silk gown.
I’m not wearing all of that now. I have shed part of my
disguise in the robing room of the Bailey. Robes off. Collar
and cuffs undone; my medium-length blonde hair – tied back
in a ponytail in court – released from its bobble; just a little
mussed up.
I am more feminine, shed of my garb. With my wig on and
my heavy-rimmed glasses, I know I look asexual. Certainly
not attractive – though you may note my cheekbones: two
sharp blades that emerged in my twenties and have hardened
and sharpened, as I have hardened and sharpened,
over the years.
I am more myself without the wig. More me. The me I am
at heart, not the me I present to the court or any previous
incarnations of my personality. This is me: Kate Woodcroft,
QC; criminal barrister; member of the Inner Temple; a
highly experienced specialist in prosecuting sexual crimes.
Forty-two years old; divorced, single, childless. I rest my
head in my hands for a moment and let a breath ease out
of me in one long flow, willing myself just to give up for a
minute. It’s no good. I can’t relax. I’ve a small patch of eczema
on my wrist and I smear E45 cream there, resisting the desire
to scratch it. To scratch at my dissatisfaction with life.
Instead, I look up at the high ceilings of my chambers. A
set of rooms in an oasis of calm in the very heart of London.
Eighteenth-century, with ornate cornicing, gold leaf around
the ceiling rose and a view – through the towering sash
windows – of Inner Temple’s courtyard and the round
twelfth-century Temple Church.
This is my world. Archaic, anachronistic, privileged,
exclusive. Everything I should – and normally would – profess
to hate. And yet I love it. I love it because all this – this
nest of buildings at the edge of the City, tucked off the Strand
and flowing down towards the river; the pomp and the hierarchy;
the status, history and tradition – is something I once
never knew existed; and to which I never thought I could
aspire. All of this shows how far I have come.
It’s the reason that, if I’m not with my colleagues, I slip
a hot chocolate – with extra sachets of sugar – to the girl
hunched in her sleeping bag in a doorway on the Strand
whenever I grab a cappuccino. Most people won’t have
noticed her. The homeless are good at being invisible or we
are good at making them so: averting our eyes from their
khaki sleeping bags; their grey faces and matted hair; their
bodies bundled in oversized jumpers and their equally
skinny wolfhounds as we scurry past on our way to the
seductive glitz of Covent Garden or the cultural thrills of the
South Bank.
But hang around any court for a while and you will see
just how precarious life can be. How your world can come
tumbling down all too rapidly if you make the wrong call:
if, just for one fatal split second, you behave unlawfully. Or
rather, if you are poor and you break the law. For courts, like
hospitals, are magnets for those dealt a rough hand from the
start of life; who choose the wrong men or the wrong mates
and become so mired in bad fortune that they lose their
moral compass. The rich aren’t quite as affected. Look at tax
avoidance – or fraud, as it might be called if perpetrated by
someone without the benefit of a skilled accountant. Bad
luck – or lack of acumen – doesn’t seem to dog the rich quite
as assiduously as the poor.
Oh, I’m in a bad mood. You can tell I’m in a bad mood
when I start thinking like a student politician. Most of the
time I keep my Guardian-reading tendencies to myself. They
can sit oddly with the more traditional members of my
chambers; make for heated discussions at formal dinners,
as we eat the sort of mass-catered food you might get at
weddings – chicken, or salmon en croute – and drink our
equally mediocre wine. Far more diplomatic to limit oneself
to legal gossip: which QC is receiving so little work they’re
applying to be a Crown Court judge; who will next be made....
This review was originally posted on My Fiction Obsession
jellyfish. Out of court, I am careless with this crucial part of
my wardrobe, showing it the opposite of what it should command:
respect. Handmade from horsehair and worth nearly
six hundred pounds, I want it to age; to accrue the gravitas I
sometimes fear I lack. For the hairline to yellow with years
of perspiration, the tight, cream curls to relax or to grey with
dust. Nineteen years since I was called to the Bar, my wig is
still that of a conscientious new girl – not a barrister who has
inherited it from her, or more usually his, father. That’s the
sort of wig I want: one dulled with the patina of tradition,
entitlement and age.
I kick off my shoes: black patent courts with gold braid
on the front, shoes for a Regency fop; for Parliament’s Black
Rod; or a female barrister who delights in the history, the
rigmarole, the sheer ridiculousness of it all. Expensive shoes
are important. Chatting with fellow counsel or clients, with
ushers and police, we all look down from time to time so as
not to appear confrontational. Anyone who glances at my
shoes sees someone who understands this quirk of human
psychology and who takes herself seriously. They see a
woman who dresses as if she believes she will win.
I like to look the part, you see. To do things properly.
Female barristers can wear a collarette: a scrap of cotton and
lace that acts like a bib – a false front that goes just around
the neck – and that costs around thirty pounds. Or they can
dress as I do: a white collarless tunic with a collar attached
by collar studs to the front and back. Cuff links. A black wool
jacket and skirt or trousers; and – depending on their success
and seniority – a black wool or wool and silk gown.
I’m not wearing all of that now. I have shed part of my
disguise in the robing room of the Bailey. Robes off. Collar
and cuffs undone; my medium-length blonde hair – tied back
in a ponytail in court – released from its bobble; just a little
mussed up.
I am more feminine, shed of my garb. With my wig on and
my heavy-rimmed glasses, I know I look asexual. Certainly
not attractive – though you may note my cheekbones: two
sharp blades that emerged in my twenties and have hardened
and sharpened, as I have hardened and sharpened,
over the years.
I am more myself without the wig. More me. The me I am
at heart, not the me I present to the court or any previous
incarnations of my personality. This is me: Kate Woodcroft,
QC; criminal barrister; member of the Inner Temple; a
highly experienced specialist in prosecuting sexual crimes.
Forty-two years old; divorced, single, childless. I rest my
head in my hands for a moment and let a breath ease out
of me in one long flow, willing myself just to give up for a
minute. It’s no good. I can’t relax. I’ve a small patch of eczema
on my wrist and I smear E45 cream there, resisting the desire
to scratch it. To scratch at my dissatisfaction with life.
Instead, I look up at the high ceilings of my chambers. A
set of rooms in an oasis of calm in the very heart of London.
Eighteenth-century, with ornate cornicing, gold leaf around
the ceiling rose and a view – through the towering sash
windows – of Inner Temple’s courtyard and the round
twelfth-century Temple Church.
This is my world. Archaic, anachronistic, privileged,
exclusive. Everything I should – and normally would – profess
to hate. And yet I love it. I love it because all this – this
nest of buildings at the edge of the City, tucked off the Strand
and flowing down towards the river; the pomp and the hierarchy;
the status, history and tradition – is something I once
never knew existed; and to which I never thought I could
aspire. All of this shows how far I have come.
It’s the reason that, if I’m not with my colleagues, I slip
a hot chocolate – with extra sachets of sugar – to the girl
hunched in her sleeping bag in a doorway on the Strand
whenever I grab a cappuccino. Most people won’t have
noticed her. The homeless are good at being invisible or we
are good at making them so: averting our eyes from their
khaki sleeping bags; their grey faces and matted hair; their
bodies bundled in oversized jumpers and their equally
skinny wolfhounds as we scurry past on our way to the
seductive glitz of Covent Garden or the cultural thrills of the
South Bank.
But hang around any court for a while and you will see
just how precarious life can be. How your world can come
tumbling down all too rapidly if you make the wrong call:
if, just for one fatal split second, you behave unlawfully. Or
rather, if you are poor and you break the law. For courts, like
hospitals, are magnets for those dealt a rough hand from the
start of life; who choose the wrong men or the wrong mates
and become so mired in bad fortune that they lose their
moral compass. The rich aren’t quite as affected. Look at tax
avoidance – or fraud, as it might be called if perpetrated by
someone without the benefit of a skilled accountant. Bad
luck – or lack of acumen – doesn’t seem to dog the rich quite
as assiduously as the poor.
Oh, I’m in a bad mood. You can tell I’m in a bad mood
when I start thinking like a student politician. Most of the
time I keep my Guardian-reading tendencies to myself. They
can sit oddly with the more traditional members of my
chambers; make for heated discussions at formal dinners,
as we eat the sort of mass-catered food you might get at
weddings – chicken, or salmon en croute – and drink our
equally mediocre wine. Far more diplomatic to limit oneself
to legal gossip: which QC is receiving so little work they’re
applying to be a Crown Court judge; who will next be made....