Why, hello! I hope you’re doing well, wherever you may be, and that you’ve got lots of lovely books on the go, crime or otherwise. Wishing you a happy Spring Bank Holiday if you’re in the UK.

Here are a couple of recent picks after quite a long hiatus. I’m hoping to get into a rhythm of posting more now: the aim is short and sweet, but a bit more often 🙂

Lawrence Osborne, On Java Road (Vintage 2023)

First line: I thought, in those desperate and forgotten days, of that passage in a novel I had read in school, where the narrator insists that he prefers to be known as a reporter rather than as a journalist, the humbler word better denoting what he does, namely transcribing what he sees.

I found myself in Daunt Books on Marylebone High Street the other week — heaven for anyone who loves travel and international fiction — and emerged with On Java Road, which I’d been eyeing up for a while.

Set in Hong Kong during the pro-democracy protests of 2019-2020, On Java Road is narrated by Adrian Gyle, a struggling ex-pat reporter who has spent twenty years in the territory. Adrian has one social ace: his old university friend Jimmy Tang, a member of one of Hong Kong’s richest families, who gives him access to high society. But things get tricky when Jimmy begins an extramarital affair with Rebecca, a young woman from another wealthy Hong Kong family, and even more problematically, a pro-democracy demonstrator. When Rebecca disappears and Jimmy refuses to return his calls, Adrian feels compelled to investigate.

On Java Road inevitably brings to mind the work of Graham Greene: Adrian could be viewed as a modern version of Greene’s ex-pat narrators, trying to fathom complex events in places that are both home and utterly alien. Adrian has lived in Hong Kong since just after the British handover of the former colony to China (1997), and what he observes reveals the laughable naivety of thinking nothing would change as a result. By 2019, China is tightening its grip via its proposed extradition bill, and money is no protection against the tricky political choices that now need to be made. An important dissection of a troubled Hong Kong, On Java Road is an elegantly written and highly evocative novel.

This week, I’ve been watching the livestream of the Post Office Horizon Inquiry. Former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells was (finally) questioned over the course of three days, and it has been absolutely fascinating to see top KC (King’s Counsel) Jason Beer holding her to account.

In case you’re not familiar with the Post Office scandal, it’s one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in the UK. Over 900 sub-postmasters were prosecuted for crimes such as theft and false accounting over 15 years, when in fact the Post Office’s own Horizon computer system, designed by Fujitsu, was responsible for the shortfalls at individual post offices. Instead of admitting that the Horizon system was flawed, Fujitsu and the Post Office repeatedly denied, misled and withheld information. The Post Office continued to prosecute sub-postmasters aggressively when it was known internally that the evidence given by witnesses in court was ‘unsafe’, and Post Office investigators were offered bonuses for successful prosecutions, which incentivised them to push cases to court. It was a Kafkaesque nightmare for the blameless sub-postmasters involved, which led to years of financial, emotional and reputational damage, and at least four suicides. It is estimated that providing compensation will cost the British taxpayer over a billion pounds.

Back to Paula Vennells and Jason Beer KC. Vennells is a fascinating example of a CEO who prides herself on acting ethically in the corporate world — she’s an ordained priest, no less — but missed a staggering number of chances to address the Horizon scandal. Beer’s job was to illustrate this through a combination of skilful questioning and carefully selected documentary evidence. The most powerful moments came when he confronted her idealised vision of herself with the reality of her past actions. For example, when Vennells claimed she would never have backed off from reviewing past cases to avoid bad publicity, Beer calmly produced an email from 2013 showing that this was exactly what she had done. It seems that being an expert in the workings of human psychology is an invaluable asset for barristers as they build their narrative and case.

The 2024 ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office, written by Gwyneth Hughes and directed by James Strong, is the acclaimed four-part dramatization of the Horizon scandal, and shows the incredible power of storytelling to illuminate major injustices and kickstart political action (fast-tracked exoneration and compensation processes). While the drama is an amazing tale of grit and collective action on the part of Alan Bates and the other victims, it’s heart-breaking to think how much they could have been spared if the Post Office had admitted its failings sooner. A corporate crime indeed.

Mr Bates vs The Post Office is still available to view on ITV and ITVX.