In Your Defence, Middle England and Prague Spring

From barrister Sarah Langford comes eleven cases, both criminal and civil, where she has appeared for the defence. All are quite devastating in their own peculiar ways. The best was about Maggie, a young single mother whose first child had been taken into care and was fighting to keep her second. This is a hugely emotional story that leaves you gasping at the end.

Then there is a major drugs and rape trial over two months comprising five defendants and ten barristers. How the judge managed to preside successfully over that lot is a wonder.

What possessed me to read a novel whose main feature was Brexit I do not know. As if we are not fed up to our back teeth with it. The book does start before that dreaded referendum and tries to lighten proceedings with some humour. But overall I couldn't wait to get to the end. The same as I feel about Brexit, or as one government advisor originally calls it Brixit.

A cleverly plotted novel that is constantly readable. It is best when the author speaks to us directly, as if giving a lecture: "We're going further, into the murky world of class". There are two couples whose alternating stories are bound to coincide at some point. James and Ellie are a young couple hitchhiking across Europe, their relationship officially friends but it is more complicated than that. They are a likeable pair, although James can be a prat. In Prague, a little older and wiser Sam is a British diplomat who is involved with Lenka, a Czech girl. It is in these sections we learn about the political tensions that are about to come to a head.

There is no guessing, given it's the Spring of 1968, how those couples will meet. However, their paths hardly cross except towards the end. Simon Mawer is quite the expert on Czechoslovakia. His previous novels "The Glass House" and "Mendels' Dwarf" are based in this country. The climax is a little predictable, but it does make for an exciting ending.