The Secret Barrister- Stories of the Law and How It's Broken Book Review

 Review

This book is written by an Anonymous Barrister and was published in 2018, where it was an instant hit in the market and has won a number of awards for being such a great book. This is the first book written by the Secret Barrister who is a junior barrister who has been in the profession for around ten years and had identified many issues with the criminal justice system.

This book looks at every aspect of the criminal justice system from the time the defendant starts off at the Magistrates court before moving on to the crown court and then the appeals of the United Kingdom criminal justice system. In each of the twelve chapters of this excellent eye-opening book The Secret Barrister writes about loads of issues of the criminal justice system and includes loads of case studies to take us the readers on a compelling adventure through the world of criminal justice to show us how it needs fixing. Throughout the book, there is an ongoing theme that anyone of us could be in court for any reason and if we are the defendant we could be wrongly convicted.

Each of the twelve chapters takes the reader to a new angle of the criminal justice system where things are broken and in desperate need of being fixed. We are given a great GCSE style extended essay with the point, evidence and explanation style chapters which look at each of the points of where the system is broken and explores the evidence in great detail throughout and explains what this means to a legal professional, the media and the general public. The Secret Barrister has got rid of as much jargon as they possibly can to make every point completely understandable for everybody which is a great feature of this book. As a result of these detailed chapters, however, the chapters are quite long and it is common for each to be around 20-30 pages long which is not very good if you are a slow reader looking for a quick read.

In most of the chapters of this book, The Secret Barrister is kind enough to provide the reader with a case study of different cases based on true cases and experiences which looks at the criminal justice system in a fun and entertaining way and keeps the reader locked on to the pages being unable to put the book down for hours on end. Each case study is used to identify how and why something is not quite right and what the problem of this book actually is. This part of the book defiantly makes it worth reading as it makes it more relevant for the public of the United Kingdom.

This book took you on an emotional roller coaster from feeling entertained and amused, to scared and sad for all the right reasons and this shows us how extraordinary parts of the criminal justice system may sound to outsiders but also how scary it can be for all the wrong reasons such as being scared of being wrongly convicted, scared for not being able to pay for legal representation or even scared that someone you once loved is lying to get you imprisoned. I can not forget the sadness of the book where it is clear people are wrongly convicted and the evidence is clear they are not responsible.

I could not easily pick out a favourite chapter from this book as it is all relevant, all interesting and all eye-opening and it angers me how although we payloads of tax for these public services, unlike the education and health services we do not hear anything about the justice system. This provides us with fresh information which may just help someone being convicted of a crime they did not do get away from the system without being wrongly convicted. 

I could go on and on all day about how great this book is to read and how it offers helpful and essential insight for those both inside and outside the law. The Secret Barrister writes this book with great skill making it entertaining and eye-opening whilst highlighting the terrors of the United Kingdom's criminal justice system. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Secret Barrister sincerely for writing this book enabling us to get an insight into our system and I hope he will write more books on top of his new book about Fake Law which is due to be released tomorrow, the third of September 2020. I would also love to see a book on the youth justice system written by the same author. This is a gripping, eye-opening and interesting book!

I have not ever read a book quite like this but I a sure if you liked this book other books you could read which are similar to this include The Secret Midwife, but we defiantly need more books like this which are honest with us and tells us exactly what our public services are like.

I would rate this book 5 stars (out of 5) due to the eye-opening and book gripping nature of this book which has made me enjoy every moment of this book and made me want to keep reading this book continuously.

Thank you very much for reading this book review, please be sure to check out The Secret Barrister's Blog which is defiantly worth a read. I would also like to take this opportunity to ask you to please either donate to this blog via Paypal or buy me a book using the buttons at the side of this blog to enable me to keep writing these reviews and blogging and thank you for all those who have supported me.

Charlie Medcalf

Reviewer