The Long-Shot Trial: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel

Deverell shines in his clever latest outing for Arthur Beauchamp (after Stung), which finds the Canadian defense attorney looking back on a decades-old murder case. In 1966, Angelina Santos, a maid, confessed to murdering her employer, business magnate Frederick Trudd, with his own rifle. She claimed Trudd had long been abusing her, and that he raped her three days before she killed him. Despite the long odds of winning an acquittal, 29-year-old Beauchamp is assigned to defend Santos, and urged by his boss to make a good-faith effort. Haunted by the loss of his only previous murder trial, Beauchamp is determined to find weaknesses in the prosecution’s case. As the trial unfolds in 1966, Deverell shuffles in chapters set in the present day: biographer Wentworth Chase has published a second edition of his book about Beauchamp’s career, with new material about the Santos case that Beauchamp disputes. To set the record straight, he begins writing a memoir that covers the early days of his career. The ingenious framing device and surprise-packed courtroom action put this on the level of the series’ best entries. It’s a surefire winner. (May)