Kill All The Judges

William Deverell

Description

'Complex, fascinating, and fun Kill All the Judges is a classic crime work, from an author heralded as one of Canada s best, and with good reason. Shelf Life Finalist for the Stephen Leacock Humour Prize Is someone systematically killing the judges called to the British Columbian bar? At least one has been murdered and several have disappeared. Arthur Beauchamp returns from retirement once again to take on the case, this time defending his former nemesis, backwoods poet Cudworth Brown. He finds himself chasing all kinds of leads, including tracking down a mystery novel that Brown s unreliable former lawyer has been writing, just as Beauchamp s own wife, Margaret, has announced her candidacy for the Green Party. Complex, madcap, and peopled with some of the most delightfully eccentric characters to be found between two covers, Kill All the Judges proves William Deverell s mastery of the hilariously comedic crime novel.

Informations

• Publié par: Ecw Press
• Date de parution: 26 octobre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781773058511
• Langue: English

Extrait

Kill All the Judges An Arthur Beauchamp Novel
William Deverell






Contents Also by William Deverell Praise for William Deverell Dedication Part One: The Life of Brian 1: The Madness of Gilbert Gilbert 2: Naughty Judge 3: The Orange Superskunk of Hamish McCoy 4: The Valentine Agency 5: The Three-Eleven Ferry 6: Carolling Caroline 7: The Conquest of Norbert 8: Eat the Rich 9: A Blunder Bay Christmas 10: New Love Blooms as the Old Lies Dying 11: Vale of Tears 12: The Whispered Answer 13: Running Mate 14: Trial Run 15: The News at Six 16: Hotel Paranoia Part Two: Poetic Justice 17: The Third Fiddle Theory 18: Someone Else Is Going to Die 19: The Badger 20: See No Evil 21: The Snake Pit 22: April Fool 23: The Carnival Comes to Lighthouse Lane 24: The Owl and the Hooker 25: Fowl Play 26: The Maid, the Major, and the Mexican 27: Just the Fax, Ma’am 28: A Tragedy of Justice 29: Fowl Murder 30: On Her Majesty’s Service 31: Femme Fatale 32: Ebbe and Flo 33: The Real McCoy 34: Year of the Rat 35: Crucifiction About the Author Copyright


Also by William Deverell
Fiction
Needles
High Crimes
Mecca
The Dance of Shiva
Platinum Blues
Mindfield
Kill All the Lawyers
Street Legal: The Betrayal
Trial of Passion
Slander
The Laughing Falcon
Mind Games
April Fool
Kill All the Judges
Snow Job
I’ll See You in My Dreams
Sing a Worried Song
Whipped
Stung
Non-Fiction
A Life on Trial


Praise for William Deverell
April Fool
(Winner of the 2006 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel)
“Deverell writes breathless prose, commas flying here and there with exuberant abandon, as he dissects the nuttiness of his various locations. . . . April Fool spills over with idiosyncratic characters.” — Edmonton Journal
“[He] is one of Canada’s best and funniest mystery writers.” — Ottawa Citizen
“Readers gladly follow all of Deverell’s distinctly drawn characters through tiny outposts on Canada’s West Coast to the courtrooms of Victoria and Vancouver and the fine hotels of Europe. He is a master storyteller with a wonderful sense of humour. The story flows effortlessly, and readers are twigs on the river, along for one hell of a ride.” — Quill & Quire
Kill All the Judges
(Shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour)
“Expert crackling wit, laugh-out-loud crime, and madcap characters.” — Canadian Living
“He’s a master of the laugh-out-loud crime novel.” — Vancouver Sun
“ Kill All the Judges is replete with Stephen Leacock–like humour. . . . Yet for all its seemingly lighthearted humour, this is a work of great depth and complexity. Pay attention to every word and nuance, for this is a well-crafted and at times raging-mad study into the complexities of a human mind in turmoil.” — Globe and Mail
Snow Job
(Shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour)
“A laugh-out-loud satire. . . . Snow Job is great, great fun!” — Shelagh Rogers, The Next Chapter
“Deverell has much material that is as funny as anything he’s written. He is in prime comic form in his sendups of Canadian politicians.” — Jack Batten, Toronto Star
“Witty, smart mystery . . . a fascinating cast of characters with a plot that hooks readers from the very first page.” — The Chronicle Herald
I’ll See You in My Dreams
(Finalist for the Arthur Ellis Award)
“Deverell’s excellent fifth novel featuring lawyer Arthur Beauchamp (after 2009’s Snow Job ) finds him retired on Garibaldi Island near Vancouver — and still haunted by his first murder trial. Readers will hope they haven’t seen the last of the endearingly complex, fallible, and fascinating Beauchamp.” — Publishers Weekly
“Bill Deverell, one of the finest of Canada’s writers, builds his best book ever. There is a great courtroom drama here, something that Deverell excels at.” — Margaret Cannon, Globe and Mail
Sing a Worried Song
“I love Bill Deverell’s books. . . . This sixth Arthur Beauchamp book is simply brilliant.” — Globe and Mail
“Deverell’s two kinds of pro at once: an extremely experienced lawyer and a long-time writer of crime fiction, he makes the courtroom scenes lively and realistic.” — National Post
“He may be the most convincing of all writers of courtroom stories, way up there just beyond the lofty plateau occupied by such classic courtroom dramatists as Scott Turow and John Lescroart, and in the new book, it’s Deverell at peak form.” — Toronto Star
Whipped
“ Whipped is vintage Deverell: sardonic yet humane, with a cast of complicated characters, seemingly effortless storytelling, and more than a touch of the absurd. Over twenty novels to his credit, and somehow he just keeps getting better.” — John MacLachlan Gray, award-winning author of The Fiend in Human and Billy Bishop Goes to War
“William Deverell combines his unique rollicking, raucous, fast-paced writing style with his jaundiced eye for Canadian politics and his love for the work of a skilled trial lawyer, Arthur Beauchamp. Well worth a read.” — Mike Harcourt, former Vancouver Mayor, B.C. Premier, fellow Garibaldi Island resident with Bill Deverell
“ Whipped is a heady blend of sex, politics, and blackmail with New Age group-grope, Russian perfidy, and Mafia machinations — a tale that’s fresh, original, and funny, a totally delightful romp.” — Silver Donald Cameron, author of Warrior Lawyers and writer/narrator of the documentary film Green Rights: The Human Right to a Healthy World
Stung
“Deverell’s Stung is relevant, rich with countless memorable characters, loaded with courtroom suspense, and above all, tremendously readable. Up there with some of my favourite legal thrillers, a list that includes Turow and Connelly.” — Linwood Barclay, New York Times bestselling author of Elevator Pitch and A Noise Downstairs
“ Stung — a blistering ride on a flaming meteor.” — Joy Kogawa, author of acclaimed, award-winning novel Obasan
“Canada’s Raymond Chandler is at the top of his game in this rollicking, riveting tale of youthful valour versus corporate villainy. Both laugh-aloud funny and profound, Stung is a feast of wit, satire, and suspense to keep you up all night.” — Ronald Wright, author of A Short History of Progress


Dedication
To the memory of David Gibbons, QC, my former partner in law, whose generosity, good humour, and largeness of spirit touched all who knew him, and whose courtroom artistry was surpassed by none.


Part One The Life of Brian
Neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring.
–– John Heywood, 1546


1 The Madness of Gilbert Gilbert
There was no dispute about the facts. A hundred-pound weakling with the redundant name of Gilbert F. Gilbert had stepped into a crowded Vancouver courtroom and aimed a small-calibre revolver at Chief Justice Wilbur Kroop. A police officer leaped from the witness stand, and as he tackled Gilbert the gun fired. The officer stopped the bullet with his heart.
All these facts were admitted by the defence at Gilbert Gilbert’s murder trial in January 2007. It was conceded, too, that the accused — forty-five, single, friendless — was a senior court clerk. Thus he had easy access to the courtroom from Kroop’s chambers, where he’d been hiding.
They called Kroop the Badger, not just because of his squat, broad body but because of his claws. The defence portrayed him as a notorious bully who had taunted and shamed Gilbert, who made a fool of him in open court and sent him off in tears, who drove him to the precipice of madness and made him jump.
The defence argued that in his delusional state the accused had convinced himself Kroop was a former Nazi death camp commandant whom Gilbert had been ordered by God to eliminate. “God’s will be done!” he shouted at his jailers, at the many doctors who examined him.
His counsel was Brian Pomeroy, of the feisty criminal law firm of Pomeroy, Macarthur, Brovak, and Sage, and he was assisted by young Wentworth Chance, who did most of the work, burying himself in the law, interviewing specialists in post-traumatic stress disorder and schizophrenia. In comparison, the Crown’s witnesses in rebuttal were a mediocre lot.
With Chance doing the heavy lifting, Pomeroy played to the jury, raising objections and cross-examining with his typical dry, manic wit. A celebrated neurotic, he’d won celebrated trials, most notably the recent defence of the assassin (alleged) of the president of Bhashyistan. But his life was in turmoil — he was drinking hard, tupping his secretary, and his marriage was heading for meltdown. Unable to face Caroline’s cold silences and searing looks, he had taken to sleeping in the office on weekday nights.
In overcoming these handicaps, it helped that Pomeroy had drawn a dispassionate prosecutor and a judge with whom he used to smoke dope. The jury seemed interested and sympathetic — all except the sneering foreman, Harrison, a retired major from the Patricia’s Light Infantry, a former combat training instructor. He would look at Pomeroy with a disdainful curl of a smile, as if to say, You lawyers will defend anybody, won’t you? Even a hypersensitive worm like Gilbert.
Neither judge nor prosecutor interfered when Pomeroy portrayed Kroop, who, at seventy-four, was on the eve of retirement, as a sadistic mountebank. However, the chief justice was spared the