The murderous past

How can you defend a man you hate? John Fairfax, in his Blind Defence (Little Brown, £16.99), explores this dilemma. Diane Heybridge is found dead in her London flat. She was poor, working-class, without much of a future to look forward to. But did she take her own life, or was she murdered by her callous, jilted partner, Brent Stainsby? Into the fray steps William Benson, an ex-con, a murderer himself, now turned maverick barrister, a person the press and the public love to hate. With his legal partner Tess de Vere, he takes on Stainsby’s case and finds himself defending a man that nobody likes, and that Benson himself despises.

As the true and hidden nature of the victim’s life is uncovered, the moral fog turns even murkier. Benson is a brilliant creation and really he should be the full, unsparing focus of the book: other characters are given their own chapters, and then the temperature drops. But the courtroom scenes are brilliant, and Benson really comes alive under pressure. Stubborn, fitful and contradictory, he’s a highly individualised creation and he really needs centre stage.

Julia Dahl’s Conviction (Faber, £7.99) also deals with the consequences of the law. Rebekah Roberts works as a journalist for New York’s sleaziest tabloid. When she receives a letter from a convicted murderer claiming his innocence she sees both a story she can’t ignore and an opportunity to make her name. Twenty-two years earlier, trouble brewed between black and Jewish neighbourhoods in Brooklyn. DeShawn Perkins was convicted of the brutal murder of his adoptive family, and he’s been imprisoned ever since. Rebekah’s search for the truth is difficult: nobody wants to talk about the case, and nobody wants it reopened, especially not Saul Katz, a former NYPD cop and once her inside source.