DEFENDERS'S TRIUMPH

Continuing the investigation of jury trials begun in Verdict In Dispute (1950) this concentrates on the vital, stellar role of the defence as exemplified by four cases in which, had the advocates not been as remarkable, brilliant or persevering, the accused would have been convicted. Edward Clarke's impassioned sincerity won freedom for Adelaide Bartlett when everything went to prove she had poisoned her husband in 1886; Marshall Hall and his giant personality freed Robert Wood in 1907 from the charge of killing a harlot; Patrick Hastings and his underplaying before the jury achieved a ""not guilty"" verdict for Mrs. Barney when she stood trial for the murder of her lover in 1932; and Norman Birkett made notable the acquittal of Mancini in 1915. From Victorian, to Edwardian and modern, these notorious cases and the individual styles of forensic masters make absorbing true-crime reading and the detailed following of the legal tacticians' strategy offers valid suspense.