The book...
Junior barrister Jack Kowalski is crushed. His client Timothy Smart appears to have committed a monstrous crime while on bail – a bail application Jack fought hard to win.
When a high-profile Polish footballer is charged with rape and demands a fellow countryman represent him, Jack must overcome his guilt and get back to work. Before long he takes on a second case, a GBH for instructing solicitor Lara Panassai, who Jack remains desperate to impress. But neither case is what it seems, and Jack will face an extraordinary uphill battle to see that justice is done…
The second Jack Kowalski novel, Unconvicted is a gripping courtroom drama written with the expert insight of a practicing criminal barrister, perfect for fans of William L. Myers, Deborah Hawkins, and Scott Turow.
The review...
I hadn’t heard of Olly Jarvis before being asked on the blog tour, but I do love a good legal drama, and was delighted to find Unconvicted definitely lived up to my hopes!
I hadn’t heard of Olly Jarvis before being asked on the blog tour, but I do love a good legal drama, and was delighted to find Unconvicted definitely lived up to my hopes!
It’s Olly's third book, and the second in a series featuring Jack Kowalski, a young Manchester-based barrister of Polish origin. You don’t have to have read the previous book to enjoy this newest instalment, but it’s probably better to read them in order - while it didn’t affect my enjoyment of the plot, I probably missed some nuances in the relationships between the characters.
Jack is a likeable and sensitive young man who often struggles with the harsh realities of his role as a defence barrister, not to mention his undeclared love for solicitor Lara Panassai. When Jack succeeds against the odds in winning bail for a client, what happens subsequently hits him very hard - but Timothy Smart’s story doesn’t end there.
In another plot strand Jack is hired to defend Gustaw Nowak, a high-profile young Polish footballer accused of rape, who wants a fellow Pole to represent him. There’s clearly more to the case than meets the eye, but is Gustaw really guilty... or has he been set up? At the other end of the social spectrum, Gary Dixon, a teenager with a history of petty crime, is accused of attacking an elderly man during the course of a burglary. It looks like an open and shut case. But of course it’s not that simple either.
There are a few different storylines running concurrently here but Olly Jarvis manages them deftly and the story never becomes confusing.
I’ll admit, I was a little concerned to learn that the plot involved a possibly false allegation of rape, with the main character defending the alleged rapist. This subject could have been fraught with difficulty in the wrong hands, but thankfully, Olly Jarvis deals with it very well.
The book is a very fast and easy read, courtesy of what are often very short chapters - perhaps a little too short at times (some are only a page long).
All in all I found Unconvicted to be a really engaging and enjoyable read, and will definitely seek out Olly's previous and future books
Thanks to Canelo and Olly Jarvis for the opportunity to read, review and participate in the blog tour!
All in all I found Unconvicted to be a really engaging and enjoyable read, and will definitely seek out Olly's previous and future books
Thanks to Canelo and Olly Jarvis for the opportunity to read, review and participate in the blog tour!
The author...
Olly Jarvis is a writer and criminal defence barrister, originally from London but now working in Manchester. Drawing on his experiences, he writes both fiction and non-fiction with a particular understanding of the pressures and excitement of life in the courtroom. He wrote the highly acclaimed Radio 4 drama Judgement, and wrote and presented the BBC documentary Mum Knows Best. He is also the author of Death by Dangerous. Olly has two children and lives in Cheshire
Follow Olly on Twitter @ollyjarviso.
Follow Olly on Twitter @ollyjarviso.
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