zhelana's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
3.0
I think I was surprised when I realized this book was about the UK, not the us, though I shouldn't have been given the image on the front of the book. Anyway, it was interesting enough that I kept reading through it and was interested and sometimes surprised by the way the law was interpreted and maintained. This does fall into that category of books about x facts about y that I dislike because the chapters don't really connect and I find it difficult to remember what I read about any of them. And indeed, I can't remember any of the previous chapters of this book. I think that's just the way my brain works with reading books though, as the category is popular. Anyway, interesting but not memorable.
elean0rtaylor's review against another edition
4.0
I really liked this. I think it gives a good insight into life on the criminal bar and I found it really easy to read and a real page turner despite me not usually being a huge non-fiction fan
coops456's review
4.0
There was no one truth, there was no one story. Instead there were, behind every case, just webs of messy lives.
Highly recommended. Several of the chapters are eye-openers that will stay with me.
Remarkably unpolitical - the swingeing cuts to public services are touched upon only tangentially, perhaps due to her husband being a (now former) Tory MP - this book should be force-fed to every Home Secretary and Justice Minister, just to give them a teeny-tiny insight into the everyday work of the English courts, both civil and criminal, and the grave importance thereof.
Langford covers a breadth of cases in these 11 chapters. The alleged crimes include theft, assaulting a police officer, rape, false imprisonment, burglary, cottaging, child pornography. The civil cases centre on the family court and orders concerning children, raising issues of safeguarding, parental alienation, coercive control, physical violence.
arturner's review
4.0
An interesting book. If you want more information about why the system struggles, I'd recommend the Secret Barrister. But if you're more interested in the way the law is applied to the human side of individual cases, this book is great for that.
meghjcollins's review against another edition
2.5
This book is fine, I wouldn't say it was overwhelmingly shocking or interesting. The story's we're fine, but the story telling fell flat for me.