A Game of Proof by Tim Vicary

A mother's worst nightmare - can her son be guilty of murder?

Sarah Newby, who left school at 15 and was living as a teenage single parent on an inner-city estate, has worked her way up to begin a career as a criminal barrister. Then in a terrible irony, her own son, Simon, is arrested and charged with a series of brutal rapes and murders. The evidence against him appears so strong that his QC advises a guilty plea, but Simon swears he is innocent and begs his mother take on his defense. There is no law against a mother representing her son, so Sarah agrees. The only other obvious suspect for the murders, however, is a man who has already been acquitted once - with Sarah acting as his defense lawyer ...

Has Sarah, in her single-minded determination to create a career for herself, neglected her son so much that she no longer knows him? Since he has often lied to her in the past, how can she trust him when he says he is innocent this time? And what should she do when she herself uncovers evidence that seems to suggest his guilt?

It seems that telling the whole truth must be weighed in the balance against keeping certain information well hidden ...

Author Bio: Tim Vicary is an author and a university teacher at the Norwegian Study Centre at the University of York, England. He has written three crime/legal thrillers in 'The Trials of Sarah Newby' series, and is currently writing a fourth. He has also written three historical novels, two children's books, and about twenty graded readers for foreign learners of English in the Oxford Bookworms series, published by Oxford University Press. In 2010 one of these, Titanic, was the winner in its category for the Language Learner Literature Award for the Extensive Reading Foundation, and another, The Everest Story, won the same prize in 2011. A similar Factfile book, about Dinosaurs, has just been published this year.

Tim lives in the English countryside, near York. When he’s not writing he enjoys horse-riding, cycling, and swimming. Learn more at www.timvicary.com

Kindle: $2.99