Jessica Holby is the much-loved host of the UK breakfast show Wake Up, Britain!. Well, technically she was the much-loved host as during a cooking demonstration by the regular chef Sebastian Brooks, she collapses and dies – a fatal allergic reaction to the miso paste that definitely shouldn’t have been in the dish. The only person who could have put the paste in was Brooks, but he was well aware of her allergy.

Which is why junior barrister Adam Green finds himself needing to help with Brooks’ murder charge. But with such an open and shut case, not helped by Brooks’ behaviour after the event, can Adam help bring an innocent verdict? And is Brooks even innocent?

I’ve been wavering on whether to review this one. I really enjoyed The Trial, the first book in the series, but my enjoyment was soured a bit due to the speculation that Rinder relied on a ghostwriter to bring the novel into the world, mainly due to a comment thanking a journalist, Emily Fairbairn, for pulling the novel into shape.

Since then, the publishers have clarified that Fairbairn simply acted as a editor, although apparently doing a bit more editing than usual. So let’s go with Rinder being the primary author – I did, as I say, really enjoy The Trial, so I thought it was time to take a look at the follow-up.

So, the strengths of the book first. Like the first, we get an insider’s view of what life as a barrister is like, hunting for clients, juggling cases simultaneously, making mistakes, somehow getting away with a mistake due to having a weird relationship with a judge, you know the sort of thing. This is given added life with the frequent phone calls between Adam and his mum which are genuinely funny and touching.

You can guess what’s coming next though, as I’m very much a plot focussed reviewer and I’m sorry to say that as a mystery, this is seriously lacking. The suspects are nicely distinctive – when a certain character is mentioned late in the narrative, I remembered who they were, which certainly doesn’t always happen. But there’s no investigation of note – fair enough, barristers don’t do that – but that means that there’s nothing for the armchair sleuth to do other than randomly throw darts at a suspect board. The truth is revealed when a video is found showing… something… and it’s basically the equivalent of the sleuth (or reader) being absolutely clueless until someone just tells them who the killer is. The secondary plot, concerning a Russian mob threatening Adam, starts well, but does sort of fizzle out by the end.

Oh, and the breakfast TV show, with its cooking slot and celebrity guests, felt more like a mid-morning show to me. But to be fair, I’m a BBC Breakfast viewer, I have some standards…

So a perfectly pleasant read, but the ending was a real let-down for me. Let’s see how the third book (out soon) does…