gervase_fen | Disordered Daggers : The Verdict by Nick Stone (2014)

(Gold, Longlisted.) Terry Flynt is a clerk in a commercial law firm, a dogsbody trying to climb the legal ladder, who finds himself thrown in at the deep end when the firm catches a criminal case. The accused is a wealthy businessman, Vernon James, who accepts an award for outstanding charity work one night and is arrested for a sensational murder the following morning. Terry knows that the case could be the one that kick starts his career – except that he grew up with Vernon, knows his childhood secrets, and has never forgiven him for an unforgiveable incident at Cambridge that ended Terry’s studies permanently. But that was twenty years ago – surely the past can stay buried?

Nick Stone has written a classic page turner – this was a pleasure to read. There’s a touch of Silk with the clerking, the remand visits, the courtroom procedures, and Mr Stone is very good on little details, such as the sound defendants make being marched up the stairs from the cells to the dock – “The court’s walls absorbed the high notes the metal made on the concrete, so the sound that echoed up the hollow stairwell and cut into the officious silence was the heavy swoosh of ankle chains, like a pile of heavy coins being scooped up into a sack.” This is also the first thriller I’ve read featuring key evidence courtesy of Skyplus / Freeview+., and the second to use protests in central London as a backdrop to something more sinister (it was a heist in last year’s Gold Dagger winner Dead Lions, attempted murder in this book.) If I have a quibble it’s with the bodycount, including one death in custody which I thought would have derailed the impending trial - Nick Stone is so good on the mundane (I especially enjoyed the petty backstabbing of the clerk's room) that the outre does seem, well, outre.

Will it win? I think it will make it on to the shortlist, but I suspect Louise Penny is the frontrunner in this category.