Breath of Corruption arrived through my letterbox last week, courtesy of Caro Fraser and, as the story is set in a set of Chambers, Capel Court, I was immediately interested. I had just finished reading a PD James in which the murdered victim is a barrister, and my future son in law is a young barrister in chambers so you will understand why I was intrigued.
Leo Davies is a charming, good looking, clever barrister and is head of the prestigious Chambers, Capel Court. On the surface he leads a charmed life, both social and professional but he is not so straightforward as he appears. Leo leads a rather lurid sexual life and has a hard job keeping all his skeletons in a closet. Incapable of feeling real love, he is divorced from his wife Rachel who tries to use their son Oliver as a way of hurting him in retaliation for his infidelity and betrayal.
Leo finds himself as the object of desire of the precocious younger sister of his latest conquest, Amanda a beautiful model who is trying to stop herself form falling in love with him and failing, leading him into a tricky situation, added to which he finds himself threatened by a Ukrainian gangster who is laundering money fro one of Leo's clients. If Leo does not stop investigating, he will find not only himself in danger, but also Rachel and his son.
One famous, or should that be infamous, barrister said how difficult it was to balance out work and private life and 'how hard it was to keep all the balls in the air'. Leo finds himself in the same position, but he manages to inveigle and manoeuvre until he solves all his difficulties and comes out safely. Whether he deserves to or not is a moot point; he appears to be totally amoral and ambitious with no capacity for forming lasting relationships with anybody save his belated realisation that he loves his son.
Caro Fraser was a lawyer herself before turning to writing and is married to a solicitor so she certainly knows her background. She herself was called to the Bar of Middle Temple and it is not hard to guess that she loved it as is demonstrated by her wonderfully descriptive writing about this little oasis of peace and calm in the centre of London.
I very much enjoyed this book and now that I have found out there are more in the series, I am off to get hold of them. Luckily Caro was very generous and sent me another two for which many thanks!
