Kevin O’Brien, Q.C., has been briefed to defend a woman charged with murdering her husband. Also charged with her is the doctor, assistant to the family physician, who generally treated her children and with whom—the prosecution claim—she had been having a love affair. O’Brien embarks on an unusual and adventurous course when he comes to persuade Antony Maitland to act as counsel for the defence of the doctor. ‘I want Collingwood to have the best representation,’ says O’Brien, not entirely convincingly. Perhaps what O’Brien really wanted was the benefit of Maitland’s insatiable detective energies. The case is both sombre and complicated: the allegation that a doctor has made love to a married woman and then conspired to murder her husband is sensational enough in itself. And to counsel for the prosecution at least, proof of adultery is almost tantamount to proof of murder. Maitland forms the view that if his client is innocent he can be fully cleared in only one way—by demonstrating who is guilty. This is the object of his investigations. The long trial scene, in which O’Brien and Maitland battle for their respective clients, is one of the most effective Sara Woods has ever written. (Publisher’s description)