Title: The Cut Throat Trial
Author: Secret Barrister, The
Published by: Picador
Year: 2026
First published: Picador, 2025
Date reviewed: 10.26
ISBN: 978-1-0350-4670-6
The Secret Barrister is the publishing pseudonym of a barrister who keeps their identity secret. In some markets, including the original hardback version of this book in the UK, the author is named S.J.Fleet - also a pseudonym.

Blogger and legal writer The Secret Barrister has published several best-selling non-fiction books about the law, but this courtroom thriller is their first venture into non-fiction. It too has deservedly earned the ‘best seller’ accolade.

It tells the story of the trial of three teenagers collectively accused of the murder of an older man one recent New Year’s Eve. Each defendant accuses the other two of the crime and pleads their own innocence. This is known in legal circles as a ‘cut throat’ defence – hence the title, which also reflects the one injury of many received by the victim which was the ultimate cause of death.

The story is told chronologically as the trial unfolds over several weeks. The author uses a set of different voices; the prosecuting counsel, the three accused themselves and their respective defence counsel, the trial judge, moving from one to another as the story develops. This technique works well as we gain insights into the characters themselves and those parts of the story which come out in court and those that stay hidden.

What seems at the outset to be an open-and-shut case turns out, of course, to be anything but. There is a fairly well-signalled plot development which will be anticipated by an attentive reader, but the final twist came as a complete surprise to me!

We also build a picture of how the criminal justice system is falling apart in the mid-2020s. Court buildings failing through chronic underinvestment and lack of maintenance, failures in the custody system and in the disclosure and presentation of evidence by the Police, all affect the procedure of the trial itself.

My verdict? A really good book. Read it – you won’t be disappointed!