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A A Gill

Andrew Swanston read law at Cambridge, but was inspired to write by his lifelong interest in early modern history. His Thomas Hill novels – The King’s Spy, The King’s Exile and The King’s Return – are set against the backdrops of the English Civil War, Cromwell’s Commonwealth and the early Restoration respectively. He is also the author of Waterloo: The Bravest Man and Beautiful Star and Other Stories. His first historical thriller set during the reign of Elizabeth I – Incendium (published in paperback as The Incendium Plot) – introduced readers to the academic, lawyer and intelligencer Dr Christopher Radcliff, whose adventures continue in Chaos. Andrew Swanston lives in Surrey.

A D Swanston

A E Langsford

A G Hopkins

A. J. BAIME is the New York Times best-selling author of The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War and Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans. Both books are in development for major motion pictures. Baime is a longtime regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, and his articles have also appeared in the New York Times, Popular Science, and Men’s Journal. He lives in Granite Bay, California. Visit him at facebook.com/ajbaime and trumanbook.com.

A J Baime

A J Jacobs

A J P Taylor

Anthony James Pollard is a British medieval historian, specialising in the fifteenth century and in particular the Wars of the Roses. A leading authority in the field, he is profesor emeritus of Teesside University. His books include North-Eastern England during the Wars of the Roses, Richard III and the Princes in theTower, Imagining Robin Hood: the Late Medieval Stories in Historical Context and Warwick the kingmaker: Politics, Power and Fame.

A J Pollard

A J Rochester

A K Benjamin is a clinical neuropsychologist and the author of Let Me Not Be Mad: A Story of Unravelling Minds.

A K Benjamin

A. L. Berridge read English at Oxford, and taught for ten years before moving into television, where her production credits range from period drama and thrillers to long-running soaps. She has written two previous novels, Top Ten besteller Honour and the Sword and In the Name of the King. Into the Valley of Death is her third novel.

A L Berridge

Alison Gaylin's first job was as a reporter for a celebrity tabloid, which sparked a lifelong interest in writing about people committing despicable acts. More than a decade later, she wrote and published her Edgar-nominated first novel, HIDE YOUR EYES. 
 
She's since published nine more books, including the USA Today and international bestselling Brenna Spector suspense series, which has been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony and Thriller awards and won the Shamus award. 
 
She lives in upstate New York with her husband, daughter, cat and dog.

A L Gaylin

A Maxwell-Hyslop

A McArthur

A P Wavell

A.S. Webb is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Daughter of Chaos, the first instalment of The Dark Pantheon Trilogy. She is inspired by stories rooted in history and mythology, that push the boundaries of imagination and urge us to reflect on what it means to be human.

A S Webb

A. A. Dhand is the author of six previous novels, and has been shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger Award. His DI Harry Virdee novels are currently being adapted for TV by the BBC. He was raised in Bradford and spent his youth observing the city from behind the counter of a small convenience store. After qualifying as a pharmacist, he worked in London and travelled extensively before returning to Bradford to start his own business and begin writing. The history, diversity and darkness of the city have inspired all his novels. For more information about A. A. Dhand and his books, follow him on X @aadhand, and on Instagram @aa_dhand.

A. A. Dhand

A. A. Gill

A. A. Milne

A. Anatoli

A. B. Poranek grew up sharing her time between Ontario, Canada and rural Poland, and eventually completed a veterinary degree at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences. A lover of mythology and history, she enjoys exploring both in her writing. Her debut novel, Where the Dark Stands Still, an instant New York Times bestseller, is an ode to Poland's folktales, while A Treachery of Swans transports readers to a world inspired by 17th century France.

A. B. Poranek

A. Bradley

Professor A. C. Grayling is Principal of the New College of the Humanities at Northeastern University, London, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He has written and edited over thirty books on philosophy, history, science and current affairs. For several years he wrote columns for the Guardian newspaper and The Times and was the chairman of the 2014 Man Booker Prize.

A. C. Grayling

A.D. Miller is the author of Snowdrops, The Earl of Petticoat Lane and The Faithful Couple. Snowdrops was a bestseller and was shortlisted for many prizes including the Man Booker and the CWA Gold Dagger. It was translated into 25 languages. As Moscow Correspondent of The Economist A.D. Miller has travelled across the former Soviet Union and covered the Orange Revolution in Ukraine; he is now the magazine’s Culture Editor based in London. 
 
admillerbooks.com

A. D. Miller

A. E. Ellis

A. E. W. Mason

A. Humphreys

A. Igoni Barrett was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in 1979 and lives in Lagos. He is a winner of the 2005 BBC World Service short story competition, the recipient of a Chinua Achebe Center Fellowship, a Norman Mailer Center Fellowship, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency. His short story collection, Love is Power, or Something Like That, was published in 2013. In 2014 he was named on the Africa39 list of sub-Saharan African writers under 40. Blackass is his first novel.

A. Igoni Barrett

The short life of A.J.A. Symons (1900-41) was described by his biographer as an intricate and largely harmless confidence trick. His many interests included the collection of musical boxes and rare books as well as the study and practice of forgery; they left him time to edit an anthology of Edwardian verse and compose studies of H.M. Stanley and other notable figures. He is remembered for The Quest for Corvo, one of the most remarkable biographies ever written, and for co-founding the Wine and Food Society.

A. J. A. Symons

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Jack Fairweather

‘FIVE STARS … Magnificent’ Telegraph 
‘Compulsively readable’ Financial Times 
‘Gripping and timely’ The Times 
'Crackingly told' Philippe Sands 
'A kind of masterclass' Sebastian Junger 
 
 
THE NEW BOOK FROM THE BESTSELLING, COSTA PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE VOLUNTEER 
 
The true story of a Jewish lawyer who returned to Germany after WWII to prosecute war crimes, only to find himself pitted against a nation determined to bury the past. 
 
At the end of the Nuremberg trial in 1946, some of the greatest war criminals in history were sentenced to death, but hundreds of thousands of Nazi murderers and collaborators remained at large. The Allies were ready to overlook their pasts as the Cold War began, and the horrors of the Holocaust were in danger of being forgotten. 
 
In The Prosecutor, Jack Fairweather brings to life the remarkable story of Fritz Bauer, a gay German Jew who survived the Nazis and made it his mission to force his countrymen to confront their complicity in the genocide. In this deeply researched book, Fairweather draws on unpublished family papers, newly declassified German records, and exclusive interviews to immerse readers in the dark, unfamiliar world of postwar West Germany where those who implemented genocide run the country, the CIA is funding Hitler’s former spy-ring in the east, and Nazi-era anti-gay laws are strictly enforced. But once Bauer lands on the trail of Adolf Eichmann, he won’t be intimidated. His journey takes him deep into the rotten heart of West Germany, where his fight for justice will set him against his own government and a network of former Nazis and spies determined to silence him. 
 
In a time when the history of the Holocaust is taken for granted, The Prosecutor reveals the courtroom battles that were fought to establish its legacy and the personal cost of speaking out. The result is a searing portrait of a nation emerging from the ruins of fascism and one man’s courage in forcing his people––and the world––to face the truth.

The Prosecutor

One Man’s Battle to Bring Nazis to Justice

Emmanuel Carrère

On 13 November 2015, nine attackers wearing suicide bombs killed 130 people and left hundreds wounded at sites in and around Paris in the deadliest attack on French soil since the Second World War. V13 was the code name for the much-awaited trial of those who helped to carry out these attacks. Lasting nine months, from September 2021 to June 2022, it consisted of 14 defendants, 2,400 plaintiffs, 350 lawyers and a file 53 metres high. 
 
In V13, Emmanuel Carrère follows this landmark trial from its first day to its last, taking us behind the scenes to the lawyers, survivors, family members and the defendants. He assembles, in painstaking and subtle detail, a human portrait of the crime – a study of good and evil, and the philosophical journey through the borderlands between the two. 
 
Over the course of his career, Emmanuel Carrère has reinvented non-fiction writing. In a search for truth in all its guises, he dispenses with the rules of genre, fusing passion, curiosity and a profoundly humane intellect, making him one of the most distinctive and important literary voices today.

Chronicle of a Trial

Lady Hale

Our laws and justice system might touch our lives when we have an accident, a wrong is done to us, or we have a family difficulty. They are vast, ancient and cover everything from the personal to the regulation of our government. But to most of us, they are a web of intimidating institutions and practices. 
 
Lady Hale – former President of the Supreme Court and an inspirational figure admired for her historic achievements and for the causes she has championed – shows us how the law is on our side. Taking us into the complexities of real courts and real decisions, we see that we all have rights: schoolchildren, disabled people, workers, minorities and patients. 
 
Here are true stories from every part of the justice system, from lowly benefits tribunals and magistrates’ courts to the lofty heights of the Royal Courts of Justice and the Old Bailey; stories about the dilemmas of deciding what is right and just, and which invite you to say where justice lies before knowing what the courts decided. From mundane situations to the dramatic and the extraordinary, we see how the people whose needs the law is designed to protect actually experience it. 
 
With the Law on Our Side is a citizen’s guidebook to the law in our land, a top-to-bottom tour with a supremely expert guide. In captivating stories, it tells us what the law is about, how it works and most importantly why we should all care about it.

With the Law on Our Side

How the law works for everyone and how we can make it work better

James Sexton

‘Who would have guessed that the person who gives the best advice about marriage was the guy responsible for getting you out of yours?’ – New York Times 
 
'Brutally honest and wildly useful' - Steven Bartlett 
James J. Sexton has spent over two decades in the trenches of high-stakes divorce – watching good people tear each other apart over bad communication, broken trust and problems that could’ve been solved early on. If they’d only known what to look for.How Not to F*ck Up Your Marriage is what he wishes every couple had read before it was too late. This book is an early warning system, a no-punches-pulled guide to the small mistakes, blind spots, and lazy habits that quietly destroy relationships – and the real work it takes to stay in love for the long haul.From emotional drift to financial landmines to social-media sabotaging, from sex to silence to the granola box that finally breaks you, this is a deeply practical, deeply funny guide to protecting your connection, resolving conflict before it escalates and staying close through real life.Whether you’re in a relationship, out of one, or wondering if yours will last, this is the relationship book written by someone who has seen how they end – and who, despite it all, still believes in love. 
 
Published by FlightStory Books.

How Not to F*ck Up Your Marriage

Straight talk from a divorce lawyer who’s seen it all

Tony Blair

Tony Blair learnt the precepts of governing the hard way: by leading a country for over ten years. In that time he came to understand that there are certain key characteristics of successful government that he wished he had known about when he started. 
 
Now he has written the manual on political leadership that he would have wanted when he first took office in 1997, sharing the insights he has gained from his personal experience and from observing other world leaders at first hand, both while he was prime minister and since, through his Institute’s work with political leaders and governments globally. 
 
Written in short, pithy chapters, packed with examples drawn from all forms of political systems from around the world, the book answers the key questions: How should a leader organise the centre of government and their office? How should they prioritise and develop the right plan and hire the right personnel, cope with unforeseen events and crises, and balance short-term wins with longterm structural change? What’s the best way to deal with an obstructive or inert bureaucracy, to attract investment, to reform healthcare or education, and to ensure security for the citizen? And how should governments harness the massive opportunities of the 21st-century technological revolution? 
 
This is a masterclass on leadership in general, and political leadership in particular, from a master statesman.

On Leadership

Lessons for the 21st Century

Wendy Joseph KC

What is justice? Do our legal courts dispense it? Has our judicial process improved, for the victims, the accused and for society? What more must be done to ensure genuine justice is carried out in future? 
 
Following on the heels of her bestseller Unlawful Killings, Old Bailey judge Wendy Joseph KC skilfully reconstructs courtroom dramas affecting society’s most vulnerable - so often women and children, drawing on her many years’ experience as a murder trial judge, and asking the key questions of the institutions tasked to deliver what is right and fair. 
 
From the trial of a child charged with disposing of dismembered body parts, to the woman accused of killing her own husband, Joseph is utterly compelling as she sets out how our justice system works. But, as she compares these modern courtroom tales with eerily similar cases and miscarriages of justice from years ago, might the most chilling story of all be that the lessons of the past have yet to be learned? 
 
Incisive, masterfully crafted, Rough Justice illuminates the struggles of any one of us caught up in our legal system – but particularly the marginalized and the easily exploited – and grapples with the concept of ‘justice for all’ so that we might demand better.

Rough Justice

Do we have the law we deserve?

Harriet Wistrich

For more than quarter of a century Harriet Wistrich has fought the corner of people from all walks of life let down by our justice system. 
 
When Sally Challen won her appeal to overturn her conviction for the murder of her coercively controlling husband, it was with Harriet Wistrich at her side. 
 
When victims of taxi driver and serial rapist John Worboys successfully took the Metropolitan Police to court for their investigative failures, and then, four years later, helped to hold the Parole Board to account for their decision to grant his early release from prison, the solicitor acting for them was Harriet Wistrich. 
 
It was Harriet who represented a pioneering group of the women caught up in the ‘spy cops’ scandal – women deceived into forming long-term relationships with men later revealed to be undercover police officers embedded within their communities. 
 
In a remarkable legal career, Harriet has been at the forefront of some historic and ground-breaking legal victories. Frequently working with women who have survived male violence or abuse, sometimes with the bereaved families of those who did not survive, her work has led her to challenge the police, CPS, government departments and the prison and immigration detention system. 
 
In Sister in Law, she tells the shocking stories of some of those who have come to her for assistance and shines a feminist light on the landscape of arcane laws and byzantine systems, skewed towards male behaviour and responses, through which she has steered them. 
 
Litigation can be a long and rocky path of pitfalls and dead ends and there are defeats as well as gains, hours of painstaking work as well as courtroom drama. It takes collaboration, extraordinary tenacity and huge compassion, but Harriet Wistrich is proof that it is possible to demand better justice and to bring about important change.

Sister in Law

Fighting for Justice in a System Designed by Men

Michael Meyer

‘Makes the case for Annie Besant as a truly eminent Victorian, as brilliant and fearless as she was beautiful’ The Times 
_________ 
 
London, 1877. A petite young woman stands before an all-male jury, about to risk everything. She takes a breath, and opens her defence. 
 
Annie Besant and her confidant Charles Bradlaugh are on trial for the crime of publishing a birth control pamphlet. Remarkably, Annie is defending herself against obscenity charges 45 years before women can practice law in England. At a time when women were expected to be obedient, Annie’s fearless voice was a sensation and spotlighted issues of sex, censorship and morality. 
 
A Dirty, Filthy Book tells the gripping story of a little-known pioneer who refused to accept the role that the establishment assigned her, and chose instead to resist.

A Dirty, Filthy Book

Annie Besant’s Fight for Reproductive Rights

Sex, Scandal, and One Woman’s Fight in the Victorian Trial of the Century

Clive Stafford Smith

'[A] vivid, inquiring memoir... A properly soul-searching book' Observer 
 
The powerful and emotive memoir about one man’s relationship with his father and the stigma around mental illness, from the acclaimed author and human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith. 
 
A leading campaigner for justice, human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith has spent a lifetime getting to know his clients – from detainees in Guantánamo Bay to prisoners facing execution on Death Row – and finding out 'what makes them tick'. 
 
Yet closer to home, there was a man whose mind has always remained off limits: his own father. 
 
But when Clive inherited more than 3,000 of his letters, he could finally start to piece together the obsessive personality behind them. 
 
Drawing on the life of a client with his own mental health issues, The Far Side of the Moon is an unforgettable memoir and a meticulous critique of our social and justice systems.Just how much has Clive's father's unspoken struggle shaped his own life? 
 
PRAISE FOR CLIVE STAFFORD SMITH 
 
‘Superbly written’ John Grisham on Injustice 
 
‘Remarkable’ Observer 
 
‘An empowering read for anyone who cares about the human implementation of justice’ Colin Firth on Injustice

The Far Side of the Moon

Trials of My Father

Nathan Law

Evan Fowler

Nobel Peace Prize nominee Nathan Law has experienced first-hand the shocking speed with which our freedom can be taken away from us, as an elected politician arrested simply for speaking his mind. 
 
He remembers what it is like to lack freedom - and his father's precarious three-day escape from China in a small rowing boat. 
 
When authoritarianism makes gains around the world, demanding our silence as the price of doing business, it poses a challenge to democracy everywhere. 
 
In this passionate rallying cry, Law argues that we must defend our freedom now or face losing it for ever.

Freedom

How we lose it and how we fight back

Nusrit Mehtab

When Nusrit Mehtab joined the Met Police in the late 80s the organisation was rife with racism and misogyny. Officers refused to patrol with her, or even call her by her name. Her attempts to get promoted were met with hostility and ridicule and she was subject to cruel pranks. 
 
As the years passed and her seniority grew, Nusrit was dismayed to find that these problems got worse, not better. After 30 years, she finally had enough and left the MET, initiating an employment tribunal against them in the process. Now lecturing new recruits in policing law and criminology, she's confident that we can mould the next generation of officers to create a more inclusive police force, safer for both the officers and the public. 
 
Full of gritty and shocking stories from the heart of the organisation, Off the Beat shines the light on an institution that has lost sight of its mission to protect us and pleads the case for a brighter and safer future.

Off The Beat

My life as a brown, Muslim woman in the Met

Julian Jackson

Few images more shocked the French population during the Occupation than the photograph of Marshal Philippe Pétain - the great French hero of the First World War - shaking the hand of Hitler on 20 October 1940. In a radio speech after this meeting, Pétain told the French people that he was 'entering down the road of collaboration'. He ended with the words: 'This is my policy. My ministers are responsible to me. It is I alone who will be judged by History.' Five years later, in July 1945, the hour of judgement - if not yet the judgement of History - arrived. Pétain was brought before a specially created High Court to answer for his conduct between the signing of the armistice with Germany in June 1940 and the Liberation of France in August 1944. 
 
Julian Jackson uses Pétain's three-week trial as a lens through which to examine the central crisis of twentieth-century French history - the defeat of 1940, the signing of the armistice and Vichy's policy of collaboration - what the main prosecutor Mornet called 'four years to erase from our history'. As head of the Vichy regime in the Second, Pétain became one of France's most notorious public figures, and the lightening-rod for collective guilt and retribution immediately after the Second World War. In France on Trial Jackson blends politics and personal drama to explore how different national factions sought to try to claim the past, or establish their interpretation of it, as a way of claiming the present and future.

France on Trial

The Case of Marshal Pétain

Graham Smith

They say Britain should be proud to have the mother of parliaments, a shining beacon of democracy and an example to other nations. But there's an elephant in the room. 
 
At the heart of power is a single family. They weren't elected but they live off the public purse. They aren't accountable to anyone, and yet between them they are privy to more government secrets than many cabinet ministers. Divinely appointed using a special hat, the head of the family is your superior, you his subject. Apparently he is guardian of our constitution - but we're also told he wouldn't dream of interfering in politics. 
 
If you accept the monarchy, you must accept the moral compromise that comes with it, from its erosion of the principle of equality to the secret interference in our laws. But the good news is that we don't have to accept it. True democracy is within our reach.

Abolish the Monarchy

Why we should and how we will

Jolyon Maugham

*The Sunday Times Bestseller* 
 
'Inspiring and illuminating' JAMES O'BRIEN 
 
Picked as a 2023 highlight by the Guardian 
--------------- 
Our legal system often feels like it only works for the rich and powerful. But we can fight back. 
 
Jolyon Maugham KC founded Good Law Project in 2017 with the belief that the law can also put power into the hands of ordinary people. Already the largest legal campaign group in the UK, Good Law Project is shining light into corners the establishment would rather keep dark – from the failures of Brexit to the still-developing PPE scandal, to the tax arrangements of business giants like Uber. 
 
In Bringing Down Goliath, Jolyon Maugham KC reveals the story behind these landmark cases and the hidden fault lines of our judicial system. He offers an empowering, bold new vision for how the law can work better for all of us in the fight against injustice.

Bringing Down Goliath

How Good Law Can Topple the Powerful

Denise Mina

Denise Mina examines the most famous - and infamous - cases in Scottish legal history, and participates in a mock trial 
 
Denise Mina is well known for her bestselling 'Tartan Noir' novels. She has twice won the Theakston Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year Award, and her 'Paddy Meehan' series has been adapted for BBC TV. Before becoming a novelist, she studied law, and she has a particular interest in true crime. 
 
In these six episodes, she uncovers some of Scotland's most dramatic trials that continue to fascinate us years later. Also included is a bonus documentary, The Street Lawyer. 
 
The Paisley Snail - 1928. When May Donoghue pours ginger beer into her ice-cream float and a decomposed snail slithers out of the bottle, it sparks a case that will make legal history... 
 
Oscar Slater - Rich spinster Marion Gilchrist is brutally murdered in her Glasgow home in 1908. The hunt for her killer leads to Scotland's most dramatic miscarriage of justice: the Oscar Slater trial. 
 
The Douglas Cause - In this notorious 18th Century cause célèbre, two leading aristocratic families go head-to-head in a scandalous inheritance battle involving a secret elopement and stolen babies. 
 
The Moorov Doctrine - Glasgow, 1930, and a #MeToo-style case of sexual harassment in the workplace establishes one of the most important legal principles in Scottish law today. 
 
Madeleine Smith - In 1857, socialite Madeleine Smith is on trial for murder, accused of poisoning her French lover Emile L'Angelier. But did she do it, or not? 
 
Burke and Hare - Denise Mina looks at the notorious 19th Century murderers, talking to fellow authors Marisa Haetzman and Ian Rankin about the legalities of body snatching and the legacy of Burke and Hare's grim deeds. 
 
The Street Lawyer - Mina joins street lawyer Emmanuel De Abreu and sixth-formers from Glasgow's Lochend Community High School as they take on the roles of defence and prosecution to simulate a famous US murder case. 
 
 
Credits 
 
Denise Mina's Case Histories 
Presented by Denise Mina 
Legal consultant: Andrew Tickell 
Produced by Liza Greig 
Edited by Heather Kane 
Senior Producer: Lynsey Moyes 
 
With Katie Barclay, Alice Bowman, John Cairns, Clare Connelly, Owen Dudley Edwards, Lindsay Farmer, Pamela Ferguson, Michael Fry, Eleanor Gordon, Marisa Haetzman, Martin Hannan, David Hay, Andy Hughes, Helena Kennedy, Bruno Longmore, Hamish MacPherson, Nadine Martin, Mandy McIntosh, Allan Nicol, Janet Philip, Ian Rankin, Alison Rosie and Susanne Tanner 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio Scotland, 1 May - 27 December 2019 
 
The Street Lawyer 
Presented by Denise Mina 
With Emmanuel De Abreu and pupils from Lochend Community High School 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio Scotland, 2 April 2019 
 
© 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Denise Mina’s Case Histories

A BBC Radio True Crime Series

Jamie Bartlett

'An astonishing read, plunging you into a toxic world of Insta-wealth, betrayal and ruthless ambition... A con that made Theranos look like small fry' - The Telegraph 
 
'The largest financial scam ever' - Fortune 
 
'The story of OneCoin stands out even among the outlandish capers of the cryptocurrency era' - Wall Street Journal 
____________________________________________________ 
 
In 2014, a brilliant Oxford graduate called Dr Ruja Ignatova vowed to revolutionise money. The self-styled Cryptoqueen launched OneCoin, a bold new cryptocurrency that she promised would earn its investors untold fortunes and change the world. But by the end of 2017, with billions of dollars invested from every country on earth, Ruja Ignatova had disappeared - along with the money. 
 
The Missing Cryptoqueen tells the outrageous true story of the world's most wanted woman and the author's five-year hunt for the truth. It is a modern tale of greed, rivalry and herd madness that reveals how OneCoin became the biggest scam of the 21st Century.

The Missing Cryptoqueen

The Crypto Con That Fooled the World

Rib Davis

Eight dramatised documentaries of landmark trials that changed the law 
 
What do you do when a judge sentences your child to be beaten? 
 
If someone who has been stabbed dies after refusing a blood transfusion, is it a straight case of murder? 
 
How did a murder case end up changing the law for battered women who kill? 
 
In this gripping series, Helena Kennedy, celebrated human rights lawyer, broadcaster and civil liberties expert and playwright Rib Davis bring to life eight groundbreaking twentieth century trials. With the help of a full cast they reveal how the British legal system has been influenced by powerful, human stories that redefined the law to better reflect our modern society. 
 
A Case of Blasphemous Obscenity - Mary Whitehouse brings a libel case against the editor of Gay News, for publishing an allegedly obscene poem. 
 
A Bunch of Twigs - The parents of four 15-year-old boys, sentenced to be birched, launch an appeal against corporal punishment. 
 
The Case of The Ladies' Directory - What is moral? Publishing information on how to contact sex workers brings Fredrick Shaw to court on moral grounds. 
 
85 Burglaries and a Phone Tap - Who's listening? The trial of eight people in 1978 leads to a much more important investigation into State secrecy. 
 
I've Only Just Learnt To Cry - The tragic story of Emma Humphries, who in 1985 was tried for the murder of her boyfriend. 
 
Only a Phase - A group of young men in 1970s Belfast appeal to the British Government for gay rights. 
 
Breaking the Chain - A young Jehovah's Witness is stabbed and dies. The court must decide if it was murder or if she contributed to her own death by refusing a blood transfusion. 
 
On Self Deliverance - Murder or 'mercy'? An organisation finds itself in court after offering practical help to those wishing to commit suicide. 
 
Presented by Helena Kennedy 
Written by Rib Davis 
 
First Broadcast BBC Radio 4, 10-31 July 1998 (Series 1) and 1-22 December 1999 (Series 2) 
© 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P) 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Unwritten Law

Owen Walker

The proud owner of a sprawling £14m estate in the Cotswolds, boasting a stable of eventing horses, a fleet of supercars and neighbouring the royal family, Neil Woodford was the most celebrated and successful British investor of his generation. 
 
He spent years beating the market; betting against the dot com bubble in the 1990s and the banks before the financial crash in 2008, making blockbuster returns for his investors and earning himself a reputation of 'the man who made Middle England rich'. 
 
But, in 2019, after a stream of poorly-judged investments, Woodford's asset management company collapsed, trapping hundreds of thousands of rainy-day savers in his flagship fund and hanging £3.6bn in the balance. 
 
In Built on a Lie, Financial Times reporter Owen Walker reveals the disastrous failings of Woodford, the greed at the heart of his operation, the flaws of an industry in thrall to its star performers and the dangers of limited regulation. With exclusive access to Woodford's inner circle, Walker will reveal the full, jaw-dropping story of Europe's biggest investment scandal in a decade.

Built on a Lie

The Rise and Fall of Neil Woodford and the Fate of Middle England’s Money

Geoff White

They have been accused of causing mayhem in Hollywood with the infamous Sony hack. 
 
They're allegedly behind WannaCry, a cyber-attack that brought NHS hospitals to a dangerous standstill. 
 
And it has been claimed that they have stolen more than $1 billion in an international crime spree. 
 
They are the Lazarus Group, a shadowy cabal of hackers accused of working on behalf of the North Korean state. North Korea denies the allegations, saying the accusations are American attempts to tarnish its image. 
 
From the streets of Dhaka to the casinos of Macau to the secretive capital of Pyongyang, this shocking story uncovers the secret world of the Lazarus Group, their victims and those who have tried - and so far failed - to stop them.

The Lazarus Heist

Based on the No 1 Hit podcast

Devi Sridhar

**THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER | BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK** 
 
The definitive story of COVID-19 and how global politics shape our health - from a world-leading expert and the pandemic's go-to science communicator 
 
Professor Devi Sridhar has risen to prominence for her vital roles in communicating science to the public and speaking truth to power. In Preventable she highlights lessons learned from outbreaks past and present in a narrative that traces the COVID-19 pandemic - including her personal experience as a scientist - and sets out a vision for how we can better protect ourselves from the inevitable health crises to come. 
 
In gripping and heartfelt prose, Sridhar exposes the varied realities of those affected and puts you in the room with key decision makers at crucial moments. She vibrantly conveys the twists and turns of a plot that saw: deadlier varients emerge (contrary to the predictions of social media pundits who argued it would mutate to a milder form); countries with weak health systems like Senegal and Vietnam fare better than countries like the US and UK (which were consistently ranked as the most prepared); and the quickest development of game-changing vaccines in history (and their unfair distribution) 
 
Combining science, politics, ethics and economics, this definitive book dissects the global structures that determine our fate, and reveals the deep-seated economic and social inequalities at their heart - it will challenge, outrage and inspire. 
 
'A brutally compelling reminder that if voices like Devi's had been listened to, so many more could have lived' OWEN JONES 
 
'One of the most brilliant scientists in the world who has been proven consistently right in this crisis' PIERS MORGAN 
 
'Excellent . . . Fair, clear and compelling' NICOLA STURGEON 
 
'Those who have found Professor Devi Sridhar's expertise and calm advice invaluable since the arrival of Covid-19 will be glad to know that she has written Preventable' RACHEL COOKE, Guardian, Non-fiction to look out for in 2022

Preventable

How a Pandemic Changed the World & How to Stop the Next One

Patrick Tidmarsh

A leading criminologist draws on more than thirty years' experience to propose a new way of understanding sexual crimes 
 
The prevalence of sexual offending is one of the most urgent, and most widely misunderstood, subjects of our times. Drawing on his experience working with sex offenders and survivors, Patrick Tidmarsh explains how and why at every stage of the criminal and justice process we continue to get things so badly wrong. He powerfully argues that we need to find a new way to understand, investigate and talk about these crimes. He invites us all to question our own prejudices and assumptions - about both victims and perpetrators - and to question the social, criminal, and judicial systems that mean most victims still stay silent, and so few sexual offenders are held to account. 
 
Written with calm authority, insight and sensitivity, The Whole Story reveals the shocking reality of sexual crimes today and offers an urgent roadmap for change.

The Whole Story

Investigating Sexual Crime – Truth, Lies and the Path to Justice

Gregory Zuckerman

Jim Simons is the greatest moneymaker in modern financial history. His record bests those of legendary investors, including Warren Buffett, George Soros and Ray Dalio. Yet Simons and his strategies are shrouded in mystery. The financial industry has long craved a look inside Simons's secretive hedge fund, Renaissance Technologies and veteran Wall Street Journal reporter Gregory Zuckerman delivers the goods. 
 
After a legendary career as a mathematician and a stint breaking Soviet codes, Simons set out to conquer financial markets with a radical approach. Simons hired physicists, mathematicians and computer scientists - most of whom knew little about finance - to amass piles of data and build algorithms hunting for the deeply hidden patterns in global markets. Experts scoffed, but Simons and his colleagues became some of the richest in the world, their strategy of creating mathematical models and crunching data embraced by almost every industry. Simons and his team used their wealth to upend the worlds of politics, philanthropy and science. They weren't prepared for the backlash. 
 
In this fast-paced narrative, Zuckerman examines how Simons launched a quantitative revolution on Wall Street, and reveals the impact that Simons, the quiet billionaire king of the quants, has had on worlds well beyond finance.

The Man Who Solved the Market

How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution SHORTLISTED FOR THE FT & MCKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2019

Robin Wigglesworth

Index funds are perhaps the most widely influential investment vehicles available. They have revolutionised investing, saving millions of people untold billions of dollars in fees that would otherwise have gone to fund managers. It is no exaggeration to say that the rise of passive investing is probably one of the most consequential financial inventions of the past half-century. It is rewiring markets and reshaping the finance industry. 
 
Yet some detractors say that index investing is an insidious disease and with their rapid expansion, and grip on the financial market, index funds may have cataclysmic consequences that we aren't even aware of yet. What might the socio-economic risks of wide-spread passive investing be? What are the longer-term consequences to capitalism? And what does the future look like for the investment landscape? 
 
Through exclusive interviews with key industry giants, Robin Wigglesworth, the Financial Times' New York-based markets editor, reveals the thrilling and untold history of the revolutionists behind the invention of index funds and investigates one of the most pressing financial uncertainties of our time.

Trillions

How a Band of Wall Street Renegades Invented the Index Fund and Changed Finance Forever

High-profile murder cases all too often grab our attention in dramatic media headlines - for every unlawful death tells a story. But, unlike most of us, a judge doesn't get to turn the page and move on. Nor does the defendant, or the family of the victim, nor the many other people who populate the court room. 
 
And yet, each of us has a vested interest in what happens there. And while most people have only the sketchiest idea of what happens inside a Crown Court, any one of us could end up in the witness-box or even in the dock. 
 
With breath-taking skill and deep compassion, the author describes how cases unfold and illustrates exactly what it's like to be a murder trial judge and a witness to human good and bad. Sometimes very bad. 
 
The fracture lines that run through our society are becoming harder and harder to ignore. From her unique vantage point, Wendy Joseph QC warns that we do so at our peril.

Unlawful Killings

Life, Love and Murder: Trials at the Old Bailey

Simon Clark

Will Louch

AS FEATURED IN BBC TWO'S BILLION DOLLAR DOWNFALL: THE DEALMAKER DOCUMENTARY 
 
Two Wall Street reporters investigate the man entrusted with millions to make profits and end poverty but now stands accused of masterminding one of the biggest, most brazen frauds in history. 
 
'Gripping' Guardian 
 
*** 
 
Arif Naqvi was a man with an immeasurable dream: to end world suffering, poverty and disease. His vision? Capitalism used for good, progress and profit. 
 
He persuaded politicians he could help stabilize the Middle East after 9/11 by providing jobs. He got Bill Gates to help him start a billion-dollar fund to improve health care in poor countries. He won the support of Obama's administration and was even appointed to boards by the UN and Interpol. 
 
The only problem? In 2019 Arif Naqvi was arrested on charges of money laundering and misappropriating hundreds of millions of dollars. He now faces up to 291 years in jail. This is the true, jaw-dropping investigation into the smoke and mirrors world of The Key Man. 
 
*** 
 
'Impeccably researched and sumptuous in its detail . . . It's a page-turner' The Economist 
 
'This book tells the story brilliantly. . . Well-paced and cleverly organised. It also draws some devastating conclusions' The Sunday Times 
 
'A pacy and deeply-reported tale' Financial Times 
 
LONGLISTED FOR THE FT MCKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021 
AN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR

The Key Man

How the Global Elite Was Duped by a Capitalist Fairy Tale

James Patterson

A young lawyer takes on the judge who is destroying her hometown - and ends up behind bars... 
 
In picture-perfect Erva, Alabama, the most serious crimes are misdemeanors. Speeding tickets. Shoplifting. Contempt of court. 
 
Then why is the jail so crowded? And why are so few prisoners released? There's only one place to learn the truth. 
 
Sometimes the best education a lawyer can get is a short stretch of hard time. 
 
INCLUDES BONUS STORY: POWER OF ATTORNEY

Jailhouse Lawyer

Adam Wagner

0n 26 March 2020, a new law appeared. In eleven pages it locked down tens of millions of people, confined us to our homes, banned socialising, closed shops, gyms, pubs, places of worship. It restricted our freedoms more than any other law in history, justified by the rapid spread of a deadly new virus. 
 
You may have expected such a law to be fiercely debated in Parliament. But it wasn't debated at all. A state of emergency was declared, meaning the law came into force the moment it was signed. The emergency was supposed to be short but lasted for 763 days, allowing ministers to bring in, by decree over 100 new laws restricting freedoms more than any in history - laws that were almost never debated, changed at a whim and increasingly confused the public. Meanwhile, behind the doors of Downing Street, officials and even the Prime Minister broke the very laws they had created. 
 
This book tells the startling story of the state of emergency that brought about an Emergency State. A wake-up call from one of the UK's leading human rights barristers, Emergency State shows us why we must never take our rights for granted.

Emergency State

How We Lost Our Freedoms in the Pandemic and Why it Matters

Danielle Keats Citron

'Devastating and urgent, this book could not be more timely' Caroline Criado Perez, award-winning and bestselling author of Invisible Women 
 
Danielle Citron takes the conversation about technology and privacy out of the boardrooms and op-eds to reach readers where we are - in our bathrooms and bedrooms; with our families and our lovers; in all the parts of our lives we assume are untouchable - and shows us that privacy, as we think we know it, is largely already gone. 
 
The boundary that once protected our intimate lives from outside interests is an artefact of the twentieth century. In the twenty-first, we have embraced a vast array of technology that enables constant access and surveillance of the most private aspects of our lives. From non-consensual pornography, to online extortion, to the sale of our data for profit, we are vulnerable to abuse -- and our laws have failed miserably to keep up. 
 
With vivid examples drawn from interviews with victims, activists and lawmakers from around the world, The Fight for Privacy reveals the threat we face and argues urgently and forcefully for a reassessment of privacy as a human right. As a legal scholar and expert, Danielle Citron is the perfect person to show us the way to a happier, better protected future.

The Fight for Privacy

Protecting Dignity, Identity and Love in the Digital Age

Arundhati Roy

'Azadi!' - Urdu for 'freedom' - is the iconic chant of the Kashmiri freedom struggle. And now, while Kashmir's streets have been silenced, the irony is that this same anthem echoes round the streets of the country that most Kashmiris view as their coloniser. What lies between the silence of one street and the sound of the other? Is it a chasm, or could it become a bridge? 
 
In this series of penetrating essays on politics and literature, Arundhati Roy examines this question, challenging us to reflect on the meaning of freedom in a world of growing authoritarianism. Azadi, she warns, hangs in the balance for us all.

AZADI

Fascism, Fiction & Freedom in the Time of the Virus

Freedom. Fascism. Fiction.

Helen Thorn

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
'Helen is the woman I want in my life when the shit hits the fan' - Bryony Gordon 
 
What do you do when your relationship suddenly ends? How do you cope when the cosy 'coupley' future you had planned disappears? 
 
Join comedian Helen Thorn from The Scummy Mummies as she haphazardly takes the plunge into single life for the first time in twenty-two years. 
 
 Helen shares her own roller coaster journey from the initial shock of a surprise separation, the messy months hanging out in her PJs through to the highs of rediscovering online dating, tiny pants, rock-solid female friendships and the glorious joy of just being by herself. 
 
With the help of relationship experts and an army of women "who know", Get Divorced, Be Happy will show you that going it alone isn't the end, it is just the beginning, and you will come out the other side, stronger, happier and goddamn sassier than ever before.

Get Divorced, Be Happy

How becoming single can turn out to be your happy ever after

How becoming single turned out to be my happily ever after

The year is 1Q84. This is the real world, there is no doubt about that. But in this world, there are two moons in the sky. Discover the 1Q84 Trilogy by Haruki Murakami.

1Q84

365 Days of Art

A BBC Christmas

A Black Book Thriller

A Box Full of Murders

A Cal Leandros Novel

A Christmas Mystery

The intelligent and capable police commissioner Guido Brunetti confronts crime in and around his home town of Venice.

A Commissario Brunetti Mystery

A DC Smith / Kings Lake Investigation Series

A Daisy Story

Chronicling the lives of over three hundred characters, unrivalled for its scope and humour, this is a unique evocation of life in twentieth-century England.

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