Lawyer Gabriel Ward is an introverted, deeply principled man who would prefer to be reading. Books are his sanctuary. But they’re also his escape.
A Case of Mice and Men | Sally Smith | Raven Books (336 pages)
I read. A lot. My library holds list is the length of a CVS receipt (and yes, the books all become available at once). I wallow in foreign bookstores even if there are no books in English. I volunteer at a small library on Fire Island; happily labeling books, ignoring the beach; spending the off season compiling lists of what titles to order. I give away books with evangelical fervor and then want them back to (possibly) reread. The whole thing might be edging from “passion” into “problem.”
So when I read this line from William Somerset Maugham — “Conversation after a time bores me… Then I fly to my book as the opium-smoker to his pipe” — I felt a little too seen.
That line from Maugham rang particularly true when I began reading about Gabriel Ward, a barrister at the center of A Case of Mice and Murder: The Trials of Gabriel Ward by Sally Smith (Raven Books, 336 pages). Like Maugham’s narrator, Gabriel retreats into the safety of solitude and literature. He finds deep comfort in his quiet world inside the Inner Temple, in London, in 1901.
These descriptions are so relatable. And that’s what makes Gabriel Ward such a compelling character. He is not just an introvert; he’s an intellectual escapist, a man who finds his greatest comfort in the company of books. We’ll soon learn, though, that the question of who wrote a book becomes a central mystery in this story. It’s fitting, then, that a man who so urgently desires to be in the company of his books is dragged into the mess of real life. As the book explains:
“He wanted urgently to be at home in King’s Bench Walk, in his familiar room, in the wing chair that had been in his family for centuries, surrounded by his books, in the safety of solitude.”
He cannot help himself. And I get that.
It’s a long wind-up for this blog to get there, but this is where the book took hold of me. It begins with a murder — the Lord Chief Justice stabbed in his chambers in the Inner Temple (and what could be juicier?) I was already hooked. But what stayed with me wasn’t the whodunit so much as the inner life of its reluctant amateur sleuth.
Gabriel gets dragooned into the investigation, a decision that hinges on an old and slightly arcane detail of English law: the Inner Temple has a special status and isn’t officially under the jurisdiction of the London police. The head of the Temple, Sir William Waring, is concerned about their reputation and opts at least at first to handle the case internally. He insists that to maintain their prestige and progress in the modern era, the Temple must at least initially take responsibility for its own policing.Gabriel, who would much rather be reading or preparing for cases, is tasked with the unpleasant job.
Gabriel Ward is an introverted, deeply principled man who would prefer to be reading. Books are his sanctuary. But they’re also his escape. And one of the small, moving pleasures of this novel is watching him leave that sanctuary — to solve a murder, yes, but also to step, haltingly, into the mess of real life. Like Maugham’s narrator, Gabriel seems to read from habit, maybe even addiction.
Which raises the question I found myself turning over more than any of the clues: does reading bring us closer to the world, or does it keep us removed from it?
And more to the point of the novel: do bookish people even make good detectives? Or are we so caught up in our internal narratives that we miss what’s right in front of us?
Gabriel, it turns out, is not just book smart. He is tenacious, logical, creative. And he’s empathetic — to the scullery maid, the deceased’s sister, and the governess, to name a few of the well-drawn characters he treats with unfailing understanding.
In one scene, for example, he notices a copy of Jane Eyre and offers a quiet moment of reflection:
“Never one to resist a book, Gabriel peered at the leather spine. It was a copy of Jane Eyre. So poor Miss Murray chose to escape into the world of another governess, one who experienced passionate romance and a happy ending.
That tension — sanctuary versus isolation, worldly engagement versus retreat — runs quietly under the novel. The Inner Temple itself feels like a physical manifestation of Gabriel’s internal world: cloistered, rarefied, book-lined, deeply ordered. It protects him. But it also hides him.
“Never one to resist a book, Gabriel peered at the leather spine. It was a copy of Jane Eyre. So poor Miss Murray chose to escape into the world of another governess, one who experienced passionate romance and a happy ending.
Gabriel is forced back into the world through two separate but intersecting puzzles: the murder of the chief justice and a legal battle over the authorship of a wildly popular children’s book. This second thread became, for me, the more compelling one. And suffice to say it culminates (no spoilers!) in a very satisfying trial.
It’s a legal whodunit in which the more pressing question becomes not who stabbed the Lord Chief Justice, but who wrote Millie the Mouse. The legal publisher Ward is representing found the manuscript in a dustbin. And he is adamant: the woman now coming forward and claiming authorship and massive royalties couldn’t possibly be the author.
“I have met this woman and talked to her. I have studied that book. I know books. For all its sentimentality, Millie the Mouse was written by a clever, sophisticated mind, not by — by — a nincompoop.”
Gabriel, as the most famous cross-examiner in London, is asked by his client to dismantle the plaintiff’s credibility. But he resists. Gabriel thrives in the clean, sharp lines of logic and law.
“‘Sir Gabriel, you must question her inspiration, her thought processes, her imagination; you must expose her as a woman who could not have written this book.’ Gabriel shook his head. ‘You flatter me, I fear, and you overestimate the subtlety of the judicial process. A court is not a forum for literary criticism. It deals in facts, not in ideas. It seeks certainty, not perfection.’”
But the question lingers: Can we truly know someone through their writing? This is yet a third mystery A Case of Mice and Murder really explores. It’s a layered meditation on identity authorship. Can a piece of writing be used to prove who we are? Can a novel become evidence of wit and sensibility?
When I read, I often end up thinking about the author’s life — much like the legal publisher and Gabriel, who try to determine the true author of Millie the Mouse through a close reading of the text and a careful study of the woman claiming to have written it. (And, yes, I also Google.) In this case, I can tell a lot about the writer from the book. Sally Smith, the author, is herself a former barrister who left the bar to write full time. She still lives and works in the Inner Temple, and her familiarity with that world gives the book a lived-in texture. The legal and historical detail is satisfying without being heavy. I wasn’t surprised to learn, in an interview, that Gabriel Ward simply introduced himself to her as a complete person and that she can actually see his lighted window in King’s Bench Walk from her own.
One moment that stayed with me — and which quietly ties the whole book together — comes when Gabriel invokes the concept of sanctuary. Not metaphorically, but legally.
“‘Sanctuary? Sanctuary? Have you run mad, Ward? Every law student knows that the law of sanctuary was abolished in 1624!’
‘Not in the Temple.’”
Yes, of course, every law student knows that the law of sanctuary was abolished in 1624. LOL. It’s such an arcane, unmistakably English legalism — the kind of throwaway line only a real barrister would dare to slip in. And it lands like a wink. Smith knows her law and her setting, and here she folds both into a perfect little jab of plot, character and history.
And it works on another level. The idea that sanctuary — whether in the Temple or in books — might persist, quietly and defiantly, even when the rest of the world moves on?
The ending is satisfying and leaves space for more. I’m already looking forward to the sequel, A Case of Life and Limb: The Trials of Gabriel Ward out later this year. It’s available on Amazon UK now and I am seriously tempted, but it’s set in Christmas, so perhaps it’s better to wait. This is exactly how I plan my reading: strategically, obsessively and with great anticipation. In any event, I will eagerly be reading the sequel at some point. Gabriel Ward is a deeply enjoyable companion. I don’t need him to change; I just want to spend more time in his company.
So whenever I do read the next novel, I’m clearing my calendar. Metaphorically and unabashedly lighting my opium pipe.