At the end of his trial for murder, a man sacks his lawyer and proceeds to give his own account of what happened.

In many ways, my world bears no relation to the one the main character inhabits. But, living in Deptford, south-east London, I can hear his voice so clearly in my head. I live on a council estate and my property backs onto a secondary school. I hear voices just like his all day every day. Mahmood has accurately captured the local vernacular.

This story drags on a bit in the middle, but it's still incredibly captivating and well done.

Thriller fans who crave fresh voices and diverse representation will devour this captivating crime novel. ( )

I quite enjoyed the first few pages of this novel, but after that it went downhill for me. I liked the narrative voice, but it was unvarying throughout and I would have liked to see it contrasted more with other perspectives. I got a bit bored with all the various gangs and gang members and their grudges against one another, although I thought the description of how difficult it can be to avoid joining a gang was well done. Mainly I don't believe for one minute that a defendant would be allowed to give a speech like this, and I didn't believe in the ending. ( )

I think you have to suspend belief to imagine this happening in our justice system
The book was a bit drawn out for me and I had to make myself stick with it.
Unlike most people I enjoyed the ending ( )

The plot device, a black young man charged with murder gives his own summing up at the end his trial after his barrister has made a mess of his defence then walked out, is entirely unrealistic but essential to the point Mahmood is making, namely that without knowledge of the culture and environment of an accused, it is impossible to reach a fair judgement on their actions. Of course, we only hear the defendant's voice so have no way of judging the truth of his comments, nor his guilt. It gives a horrific insight into the gang culture of London. February 2019 ( )

First published at Booking in Heels.

So. The narrator has gone through his whole criminal trial – witnesses, documentary evidence, submissions, etc. But, right before it’s time for closing speeches, he sacks his barrister and decides to sum up the matter himself for the jury. He was going to lose anyway, might as well tell the truth, right? Because as far as he can tell us, he didn’t do it, although it’s hardly that straightforward…

I love the style of this. The entire novel is the narrator’s closing speech, all 400 pages of it. I was worried this would get annoying after a while, but it actually strikes the perfect balance of an interesting format that doesn’t get too gimmicky. For the most part, it reads as a chatty, informal novel that it occasionally interspersed with asides about the Judge rolling his eyes or backtracking because he can see that the Jury don’t understand a piece of slang he just used. It’s a really clever way of writing a novel that doesn’t impede the storytelling in the slightest.

There is A Point to You Don’t Know Me, but it’s a valid one and it isn’t written with a sledgehammer. I don’t think the exact gender, ethnicity and class ratios of the Jury are completely revealed, but it’s clear that the Defendant does not believe that he is indeed being tried by his peers. One of the pieces of the Prosecution’s evidence is that he was overheard muttering a supposedly incriminating phrase… or so it would seem to those of us who didn’t grow-up in urban London. He’s able to explain what those words mean to him and his actual peers, drawing the whole concept of the Jury system into question.

My only complaint about this book would be that certain aspects of the ‘true’ version of events seem somewhat fanciful. If I were a Juror listening to this explanation, I can’t help but think I’d be raising an eyebrow once or twice. Maybe that’s the point though – it wouldn’t be such a thought-provoking book if the Jury’s eventual verdict was obvious. Perhaps it’s meant to be teetering on the fence of aquittal.

The novel ends immediately after the end of the speeches. We don’t return to hear the Jury’s final verdict, so we’ll never know if he was sent down or not. I debated whether this was a spoiler or not and, whilst it probably is, it would have hugely irriated me had I not known that going it, to the extent where it actually would probably have ruined the book. This way, I got to enjoy the journey and not suffer a huge let-down at the end. I do think Mr Mahmood made the right decision there though – the unknowing only adds to this books’ genius.

Whilst You Don’t Know Me is written by a criminal defence barrister (although he writes so well that he clearly missed his calling as an author), it never gets bogged down in legal terminology or archaic case law. The narrator has no knowledge of the law or the Courts either – only what his barrister managed to impart before flouncing out the door (trust me, barristers flounce). It’s an ingenious way of constructing a story, actually – a legal drama that requires absolutely zero knowledge of the law.

I’ll definitely be buying anything else that Mr Mahmood writes. He probably won’t use the same format again, but I’d be ecstatic if he did as it just works so well. I’d really recommend this book to everybody, regardless of your interest in law or crime. It’s very human – revealing our inherent prejudices and questioning whether we are ever really tried by our ‘peers.’ ( )