Dwelling
The Trendy Regulation Library
Barrister’s new thriller novel affords glimpse…
The Trendy Regulation Library
Barrister’s new thriller novel affords glimpse contained in the Inside Temple
By Lee Rawles
June 18, 2025, 11:00 am CDT
Like her Edwardian period hero, Sir Gabriel Ward KC, Sally Smith lives and works on the grounds of the Inside Temple in London. (Photograph courtesy of Bloomsbury Publishing)
Because it was seized from the Knights Templar within the 14th century, the Inside Temple in London has housed acolytes of a unique kind: males (and ultimately girls) who function advocates of the regulation. Sally Smith spent her authorized profession—and now could be spending her retirement—contained in the 15 acres that comprise the Inside Temple, now one of many 4 Inns of Courtroom.
Smith has beforehand written nonfiction books about historic crimes and authorized figures. When she determined to show her hand to writing fiction, the acquainted setting of the Inside Temple was the proper setting for her new thriller novel, A Case of Mice and Homicide: The Trials of Gabriel Ward.
Set in 1901, mere months after the demise of Queen Victoria, A Case of Mice and Males introduces a brand new (and really reluctant) sleuth to the literary scene. Sir Gabriel Ward KC is happiest both when holed up in his Inside Temple lodgings along with his books or when making a compelling case in entrance of the Excessive Courtroom judges. A solitary, specific and cerebral man, Ward is just not searching for pleasure past the mental. However he finds it early one morning when he journeys over the physique of the Lord Chief Justice of England, which has been left on the doorstep of his skilled chambers.
The traditional privileges afforded to the Inside Temple imply that no policeman is allowed to enter with out permission, and an aghast Ward is instructed that he’ll conduct the investigation or be liable to being kicked out of his lodgings. Unused to the world exterior the Temple partitions or of conversing with girls aside from his previous nanny or his mom, Ward should stretch himself to find who killed Lord Norman Dunning.
All of the whereas, Ward can also be wrestling with a knotty authorized situation involving the rights to a bestselling kids’s ebook and must train all his expertise on behalf of his shopper, the writer of Millie the Temple Church Mouse. Written by a mysterious writer, the ebook has been a runaway success, bringing throngs of youngsters to the Temple Church and spawning toys, video games and an American publishing deal. Now that the writer has reportedly surfaced and is demanding her share of the cash and management of the mental property, what’s going to occur to Millie the Temple Church Mouse?
On this episode of The Trendy Regulation Library podcast, Smith and the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles focus on the launch of this new sequence, which can include a minimum of three books following Ward’s adventures. Smith describes her profession as a barrister and why she selected to set the sequence at the start of the Edwardian period. She additionally discusses the problems of sophistication, gender and the advanced world throughout the partitions of the Inside Temple.
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In This Podcast:
Sally Smith. (Photograph courtesy of Bloomsbury Publishing)
Sally Smith spent all her working life as a barrister and later king’s counsel within the Inside Temple. After writing a biography of the well-known Edwardian barrister, Sir Edward Marshall Corridor KC, she retired from the bar to write down full time. A Case of Mice and Homicide: The Trials of Gabriel Ward, her first novel, was impressed by the historic environment of the Inside Temple during which she nonetheless lives and works and by the wealthy historical past contained within the Inside Temple archives. A Case of Mice and Homicide is the primary in a sequence starring the reluctant sleuth Sir Gabriel Ward KC.
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