As I’ve read two of Rob Rinder’s previous books I was looking forward to reading the Protest. I’ll let you know what I thought of it in a little while.
The Protest by Rob Rinder
The Blurb
A world-famous artist. A fatal brush with death.
At a star-studded opening night for the Royal Academy’s celebration of renowned artist Max Bruce, someone is hiding a dark secret.
As the night reaches its climax and Max addresses his admirers, the occasion takes a shocking turn when a protester runs from the crowd and sprays the artist with blue paint.
Max collapses and it soon turns out that the paint was laced with cyanide. Someone has been plotting to kill him.
All evidence points to the protestor – and newly qualified barrister Adam Green is assigned the impossible task of their defence.
But could there be others who wanted Max dead?
My Review of The Protest
Having read the first two books it’s good to see the recurring characters and how Rob Rinder has developed them. He definitely follows as pattern but I do think each book could be read alone.
In his first book, The Trial which I read for my book club, we were introduced to trainee barrister Adam and basically he is the main character in all the books. In The Trial it was a little overwhelming getting to know all the characters that the storyline became a little bogged down. But as with all series they do tend to get better when the characters are defined. That saying, you don’t really have to know the background of the characters to enjoy the book.
In the second book, The Suspect I was first disappointed by it starting in the same way, but the story developed differently and I ended up enjoying it.
Now, in the this, The Protest, Adam is a fledgling barrister and doing quite well at his job. He’s still bogged down with work but this time he is focused on defending two seemingly impossible cases. The first one nearly goes wrong but he gets some help and the ending is quite satisfying. The second one is much harder though and despite a lot of work things are very difficult for Adam.
The story starts in the familiar way of a death by choking on poison. It seems so cut and dry as the artist that is killed is sprayed with a blue paint by a protester and it’s found that the paint has cyanide in it. The protester that sprayed him is a young woman and is immediately arrested. Can Adam defend her, can he find out the truth.
I actually like the way that Rob Rinder writes, he has a gentle humour while fleshing out his characters. He still gets regular phone calls from his mother. He’s also still looking for romance in his life. These all help bring the stories to life as well as the gruelling life of a barrister.
If you like court cases and solving mysteries along with a little humour and good characterisation then you would like this book.
I had to check if Rob Rinder was the same one I was thinking of as in Judge Rinder. I had no idea he wrote books but I suppose he knows what he is writing about. This sounds like a great book.
Interesting plots and character development can make me like or dislike a book. The series sounds good. Thanks for sharing! #MMBC
Sounds like an interesting series, and I must say the initial murder scene gets it off to an intriguing start. Happy Reading!
I enjoyed his other two books. This definitely sounds like it follows the same themes and structure. They’re nice humorous, gentle reads. I’ve seen this in the shops in hardback, but I will wait until it’s out in paperback to read it.
This is the first time I’ve heard of this book. It is quite different to what I’m normally into, but reading your review and Sarah’s comment, it sounds like it’s worth a read. x