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Peter Murphy

Ben Schroeder, a talented young man from an East End Jewish family, has been accepted as a pupil into the Chambers of Bernard Wesley QC. But Schroeder is an outsider, not part of this privileged society, where wealth and an Oxbridge education are essentials. He encounters prejudice, intrigue and scandal.
Kenneth Gaskell, a rising star of Wesley's Chambers has become involved in an affair with a high-profile client and the relationship, if known, could ruin his career, and the careers of all those around him. But Bernard Wesley has some information - he knows about a student prank that went terribly wrong - can he use this knowledge in a desperate gamble to save his Chambers and turn the tables on his old rival, Miles Overton QC?
Ben Schroeder has proved his ability, but he is no more than a pawn in this game. Can he survive in this world where nothing, not even justice, is sacred?

No Exit Press

A Ben Schroeder Legal Thriller

A Higher Duty

It is 1964 and Ben Schroeder, first introduced in A Higher Duty, is building his career at the Bar; juggling the demands of different challenging cases, while trying to allow a little romance into his life.
Ben is already defending a vicar, accused of indecent assault on a choir boy, when he is plunged into a capital murder case. The accused is Billy Cottage, charged with murder after a frenzied attack on a young courting couple aboard a houseboat. The young man, Frank Gilliam, dies in the attack, while his girlfriend, Jennifer Doyce, is raped and seriously injured. The attacker steals a gold cross and chain from Jennifer, which makes the crime a capital offence.
When the police recover the cross and chain from Billy's sister, and find his fingerprint inside the houseboat, things start to look ominous. But then comes the crucial piece of evidence of his propensity to sing a particular song. To make matters worse, Ben is being led by Martin Hardcastle, an arrogant QC with a serious drinking problem.
In his fight to save Billy Cottage's life, Ben finds that he has both the law and the facts against him; and the tide of public opinion has not yet turned against capital punishment.

A Matter for the Jury

The Third Ben Schroeder Novel
1965. The British Establishment is reeling after a series of defections and acts of treachery by high- ranking intelligence officers. When Francis Hollander, an American academic, accuses Sir James Digby QC, a baronet and leader of the Bar, of being a Soviet spy, Digby retains Ben Schroeder and his head of Chambers to represent him. At first, it seems to be a simple case of libel, but as evidence starts to emerge of Digby's association with the Cambridge spies, and as MI6 becomes involved, Ben can no longer be sure that he can save Digby from prosecution and ruin.
To obtain vital evidence, Ben will have to put his career at risk. But will it be enough?

And Is There Honey Still For Tea?

1 July 1969. The Investiture of the new Prince of Wales.
When Arianwen Hughes is arrested driving with a home-made bomb near Caernarfon Castle, her case seems hopeless. Her brother Caradog, her husband Trevor, and their friend Dafydd are implicated in the plot, the evidence against them damning. Ben Schroeder's reputation as a barrister is riding high after the cases of Billy Cottage (A Matter for the Jury) and Sir James Digby (And is there Honey Still for Tea?). But defending Arianwen will be his greatest challenge yet. Trevor may hold the only key to her defence, but he is nowhere to be found. . .

The Heirs of Owain Glyndwr

April 1971. When DI Webb and DS Raymond respond to a 999 call at Harpur Mews in Bloomsbury, a horrific scene awaits them. Susan Lang is lying on the ground, bleeding to death. Her husband Henry is sitting nearby, holding a large, blood-stained knife. In shock, Henry claims to have no memory of the events that led to his wife's death, leaving his barrister, Ben Schroeder, little with which to defend a potential murder charge.
Unbeknownst to his strict Baptist wife, Deborah, Justice Rainer has a secret life as a gambler. In his desperation for money to fund his habit, he has already raided his own and Deborah's resources, and now he has crossed another line - one from which there is no return.
To his horror, as the trial of Henry Lang starts, Rainer discovers a sinister connection between the trial and his gambling debts which could cause his world to unravel. In a rare case in which the judge is in greater peril than the defendant on trial, both Lang and Rainer have called down the storm on their own heads.
Their lives are on the line, and time is running out.

Calling Down the Storm

Two generations of abuse... one shocking conspiracy... a woman determined to expose it all

When Audrey Marshall sends her daughter Emily to the religious boarding school where she herself was educated a generation before, memories return - memories of a culture of child sexual abuse presided over by a highly-regarded priest. Audrey turns to barrister Ben Schroeder in search of justice for Emily and herself. But there are powerful men involved, men determined to protect themselves at all costs. . .

One Law For the Rest of Us

'A good police force is one that catches more crooks than it employs' - Sir Robert Mark
'A good police force is one that catches more crooks than it employs' - Sir Robert Mark
A clever, accomplished Cambridge graduate with a good job and an attentive lover, Imogen Lester seems to have the world at her feet. But when her parents are murdered abroad while working for the Diplomatic Service, she is suddenly thrown headlong into a murky world of espionage and organised crime.
When she is charged with drug trafficking, even Ben Schroeder's skills may not be enough to save her - unless a shadowy figure from Ben's past can survive long enough to unmask a web of graft and corruption...

Verbal

'When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw' - Nelson Mandela
1964, Apartheid South Africa. Danie du Plessis, the son of a conservative Afrikaner family, is poised to start a glittering legal academic career at one of South Africa's leading universities, when he falls in love with a student, Amy Coetzee. But there's a problem: he's white, she's not. Facing arrest, imprisonment and ruin, the couple flee South Africa, and settle in Cambridge, where friends find them positions at the University. They marry and have two children, and have seemingly put the past, and South Africa, behind them. But in 1968 Art Pienaar enters their lives, and, insisting that they have a duty to fight back, enlists their help in increasingly dangerous schemes to undermine the South African regime.

When Pienaar and a notorious drug dealer, Vince Cummings, are found murdered together, Danie's activities come to light, and he and his family find themselves in mortal danger. Danie is also threatened with criminal prosecution on behalf of a government desperate to maintain good relations with the apartheid regime. Danie knows he's sailed close to the wind. But has he become an outlaw? Can Ben Schroeder persuade a jury that the answer is no?