The Trendy Legislation Library
Barrister’s new thriller novel gives glimpse contained in the Interior Temple
June 18, 2025, 11:00 am CDT
Like her Edwardian period hero, Sir Gabriel Ward KC, Sally Smith lives and works on the grounds of the Interior Temple in London. (Photograph courtesy of Bloomsburg Publishing)
Because it was seized from the Knights Templar within the 14th century, the Interior Temple in London has housed acolytes of a special kind: males (and ultimately girls) who function advocates of the legislation. Sally Smith spent her authorized profession—and now could be spending her retirement—contained in the 15 acres that comprise the Interior Temple, now one of many 4 Inns of Court docket.
Smith has beforehand written nonfiction books about historic crimes and authorized figures. When she determined to show her hand to writing fiction, the acquainted setting of the Interior Temple was the proper setting for her new thriller novel, A Case of Mice and Males.
Set in 1901, mere months after the loss of life of Queen Victoria, A Case of Mice and Males introduces a brand new (and really reluctant) sleuth to the literary scene. Sir Gabriel Ward KC is happiest both when holed up in his Interior Temple lodgings together with his books, or when making a compelling case in entrance of the Excessive Court docket judges. A solitary, explicit and cerebral man, Ward shouldn’t be in search of pleasure past the mental. However he finds it early one morning when he journeys over the physique of the Lord Chief Justice of England, which has been left on the doorstep of his skilled chambers.
The traditional privileges afforded to the Interior Temple imply that no policeman is allowed to enter with out permission, and an aghast Ward is instructed he’ll conduct the investigation himself or be liable to being kicked out of his lodgings. Unused to the world outdoors the Temple partitions, or of conversing with any girls other than his outdated nanny or his mom, Ward should stretch himself to find who killed Lord Norman Dunning.
All of the whereas, Ward can also be wrestling with a knotty authorized problem involving the rights to a bestselling kids’s e book, and might want to train all his abilities on behalf of his consumer, the writer of Millie the Temple Church Mouse. Written by a mysterious writer, the e book has been a runaway success, bringing throngs of youngsters to the Temple Church and spawning toys, video games and an American publishing deal. Now that the writer has reportedly surfaced and is demanding her share of the cash and management of the mental property, what’s going to occur to Millie the Temple Church Mouse?
On this episode of The Trendy Legislation Library, Smith and the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles talk about the launch of this new sequence, which is able to include at the very least three books following Ward’s adventures. Smith describes her personal profession as a barrister, and why she selected to set the sequence at first of the Edwardian period. She additionally discusses the problems of sophistication, gender and the advanced world throughout the partitions of the Interior Temple.
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In This Podcast:
Sally Smith
Sally Smith spent all her working life as a barrister and later King’s Counsel within the Interior Temple. After writing a biography of the well-known Edwardian barrister, Sir Edward Marshall Corridor KC, she retired from the bar to write down full time. A Case of Mice and Homicide, her first novel, was impressed by the historic environment of the Interior Temple during which she nonetheless lives and works and by the wealthy historical past contained within the Interior Temple archives. A Case of Mice and Homicide is the primary in a sequence starring the reluctant sleuth Sir Gabriel Ward KC.
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