In Noah’s Law, Randa Abdel-Fattah has found a novel way to combine the old and the new. Noah Nabulsi is the delinquent son of a hotshot barrister, and, after one schoolboy prank too many, he is sentenced to spend his summer holidays at his aunt’s law firm. Here he becomes acquainted with the photocopier, Casey the queen-bitch of the office, and Jacinta, the intern/love interest of the narrative. He also gets involved in an insurance case involving a woman who was killed during a mugging gone wrong. Or was she? The unwilling work-experience kid soon turns teenage sleuth, as Noah must draw on all of his reluctantly acquired knowledge of the law to determine who was really responsible for Maureen’s death.

While the premise is promising, the book itself falls flat. Paper-thin character development, a fast-paced but predictable plotline (despite the ‘twists’), and a fairly unlikable protagonist-narrator make the whole experience somewhat disappointing. Abdel-Fattah is a litigation lawyer, and her background serves the novel for good and for ill. She evidently knows her stuff, but the detail she invests her story with makes it feel a little like you have sat next to one of those professionals who just can’t stop talking shop.

And do the privileged sons of our ‘élite private schools’ (a favourite phrase from the novel) really need their own Young Adult fiction hero with whom to relate? Perhaps we all deserve our own. But it’s hard to get too excited about this one.