Calling down the storm

Calling Down the Storm is the story of two separate but strangely parallel lives: the life of a defendant on trial for murder, and the life of the judge who presides over his trial.

April 1971.When DI Webb and DS Raymond arrive at Harpur's Mews in Bloomsbury in response to a 999 call, a horrific scene awaits them. Susan Lang is lying on the ground, bleeding to death. Her husband Henry is sitting nearby, holding a large, blood-stained knife. In shock, Henry claims to have no memory of the events that led to his wife's death leaving his barrister, Ben Schroeder, little to defend a potential charge of murder.

Unknown to his strict Baptist wife Deborah who lives in the family home in Guildford, Mr Justice Conrad Rainer has a secret life in his London flat, a life as a high-stakes gambler. In his desperation for money to fund his gaming, he has already raided his own and Deborah's resources, and now he has crossed another line - one from which there is no return.

To his horror, as the trial of Henry Lang starts, Conrad discovers a sinister connection between the trial and his gambling debts, a connection that could cause his world to unravel. And then, there's the other terrible secret he is hiding in his flat. In a rare case in which the judge is in greater peril than the defendant on trial in his court, both Henry and Conrad have called down the storm on to their heads.

Their lives are on the line, and time is running out.

'An intelligent amalgam of spy story and legal drama' - Times

'Murphy's clever legal thriller revels in the chicanery of the English law courts of the period' - Independent