📚 Finished reading Witch Trial by Harriet Tyce.

You may recognise the name of the author as having played a short-lived starring role on Celebrity Traitors last year.

This is one of the former criminal barrister’s novels - a courtroom drama, featuring a cut-throat trial involving two teenagers who, it is alleged, have murdered a third member of their contemporary self-proclaimed coven. Yes, they are or at least claim to believe that they are, witches who can do nothing but serve the needs of the devil. As you might expect, the vast majority of the court is a little sceptical.

The story follows the life and times of one of the serving jury members, whose goes from seeing the case as a nice distraction from his somewhat troubled past and present into, well, something rather more inexplicable and disturbing.

I enjoy a good courtroom drama. I like witches and/or people who claim to be witches. I am a fan of initially unsolvable mysteries, as long as they are resolved by the end, which it mostly is. There’s a touch of messaging around prejudice and the incumbent risk of an actual hunt for witches turning into a metaphorical witch hunt. So it was a winner for me.

A courtroom thriller to be sure, albeit with a bit more substance than others I’ve read. I’ll be queuing up for any sequel.