[Published in Crime Time on 20th October 2021]

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Murder at the Bailey: Henry Milner talks to Crime Time

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If, before I started, I had fully appreciated the problems inherent in writing a crime novel, instead of romanticising the process, I doubt I ever would have put pen to paper.

Sure, I had some forty years’ experience in defending people accused of committing serious crimes. Sure, I could try my hand at writing an amusing short story or two. But a novel?

The first chapter was the hardest. If you can’t grip the reader who is standing there in a bookshop reading the first paragraph, the game is assuredly up. If ever I read a first line of a book that goes something like, ‘The sun was setting over the distant hills,’ I put the book back on the shelf – pronto!

I was also keen to avoid an overdose of clichés. All they do is illustrate a lack of imagination and act as a sleeping pill to the reader. Next, I was desperate to avoid an anxious parade of long words, determined that my effort would be an easy read without needing to be accompanied by a thesaurus.

Creating a motley, eccentric crew of characters was more in my territory. All I had to do was blend the personalities whom I had met over the years and pick out the plums.

As to the storyline, I was determined for the theme to be morality versus the law. Give me a client with a moral defence (I would always say) and you can put all your law books in the dustbin (I rarely read them anyway). Take a faithful husband who arrives home from a hard day’s work earlier than expected and finds his wife in bed with another man, loses it and half-kills him. Then he claims, somewhat unconvincingly, that he was acting in self-defence. Are you, as a juror, going to be in a hurry to convict him? I doubt it.

The most daunting task in writing the book was the constant redrafting of chapters, trying to seek such perfection as I could, changing verbs and moving commas. ‘Write drunk – edit sober,’ said Hemingway – not a bad edict at that. It puts more heart into your script.

The storyline revolves around a nasty, notorious loan shark, shot dead right outside the front doors of the Old Bailey, with the killer making no effort to escape. The cast of characters is then introduced. From the killer’s fashionable defence lawyer to his illustrious QC, with a sharp sense of humour and an oversized ego, and his cerebral junior, a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, then on to the sultry Italian beauty Angelina, followed by an acerbic judge, known to all as ‘Mack the Knife’ who has his own personal problems (courtesy of his adulterous wife) and a long-in-the-tooth detective chief superintendent on his last big case before retirement.

The main protagonist in the book is Big Jake Davenport – the numero uno in the London underworld. He is a blend of three or four different malts who have crossed my portals over the years. Huge, shrewd, loves his food and wants to be loved by others (and not just feared). He enters the arena on hearing about the killing on TV and takes an unhealthy interest in the trial of the murderer. His life’s ambition is to be the only gangster in heaven, and the story chronicles his attempts at securing that entry.

I wasted far too much time thinking about a suitable title for this book. Originally, it was going to be Jake’s Justice, before it became The Strife and Crimes of Big Jake, then Bury Me Not at the Bailey and, finally, Murder at the Bailey. The Agatha Christie influence is obvious, but, hey, she sold a lot of books!

For those of you who, having read my novel, raise an eyebrow, casting doubt on the eccentric characters within and questioning whether they could possibly exist in real life, I can only say, believe me, they do – I have met them all. They live in a shadowy expanse, reigned over by ever-darkening skies, stretching between righteousness and downright immorality. Want to meet them? All you have to do is take a trip down to the Old Bailey and you will see them all mingling there on a daily basis, each seeking their own sense of justice.

Alternatively, you could read my book!