John Fairfax is the pen name used for courtroom fiction by British novelist William Brodrick (born 1960). Born in Bolton, Lancashire, Brodrick moved with his family to Australia and Canada during childhood. He studied philosophy, theology and law, experienced monastic life and worked with homeless people in London before practising as a barrister in Newcastle upon Tyne. Written alongside his legal work, his debut under his own name, “The Sixth Lamentation” (2003), introduced Father Anselm, a former lawyer who became a monk. One source of the novel was his mother’s experience of imprisonment after helping to smuggle Jewish children to safety in Nazi-occupied Holland. The story interweaves Anselm’s investigation of a suspected war criminal seeking sanctuary with a granddaughter’s search into the history of a woman who lived through occupied Paris. In “A Whispered Name,” Anselm investigates a First World War court martial for desertion and the lifelong secret of a man who took part in judging the accused soldier. The novel won the Crime Writers’ Association’s Gold Dagger in 2009. In 2017 he published “Summary Justice” as John Fairfax, launching the series about barrister William Benson and solicitor Tess de Vere. Benson has served a sentence for murder and is trying to establish a legal practice despite hostility to his past. As he defends a new client, Tess secretly investigates the killing for which he was convicted. The novel examines judgments made by the legal system alongside claims of innocence and the conditions imposed on rehabilitation.
