Defending the Guilty

Alex McBride — Defending the Guilty

I picked this up after developing a very modern curiosity for it (I saw McBride talking on a video that was posted on the Penguin Twitter feed — how much more zeitgeisty can you get?  None, reader, none), but I think my expectations were all wrong for it.  It was a highly enjoyable and in places very informative read, but I thought, from the video and the title, that this would be a staunchly critical insider’s investigation into the iniquities of the adversarial courts system.  In reality, though critical in parts, this was no polemic; it is part systemic history, part anecdotal memoir, part description of the current state of affairs.  McBride is not a gifted historian nor a thrilling anecdotalist; not bad at either, but the history comes off as decidedly superficial and the personal stories a little bit thin.  He shines in the analysis of the current system, but this is not given enough room to breathe: I certainly learnt a bit, but it’s not quite the thorough grounding that I suspect McBride is actually capable of.  A bit of a noble failure, as I think McBride was setting out in the right direction and is certainly capable of a really great book; it’s just not this one.  I look forward to his next book, which will hopefully be a more trenchant examination of the legal system for the layman.