I was hopeful that Curry might prove to be a Rumpole for the twenty-first century. He is cast in the same clever and irreverent mould (no pun intended). In the first chapter, the disdain with which he addresses the committee at his disciplinary hearing borders on the self-destructive. Littlemore gives us amusing extracts from the original court transcripts – a brilliant example of how to insult a judge while feigning innocence – and transcripts from the hearing, during which Curry runs rings around the chairman and committee members. Transcripts are such an ingenious device for recreating the tenor and atmosphere of courtroom exchanges, I am disappointed when Curry is suspended from practice early in the novel, and our opportunities to hear him speak in court again are severely restricted.

Right on cue, enter femme fatale and possible romantic interest Arabella Engineer: middle-class, British, ‘tall, elegant and obviously of Indian heritage’. Why does this gorgeous young barrister throw herself repeatedly at a man who looks ‘like an old rugby player’? Yes, Curry is smart, and Engineer knows it. She is planning to make use of his expertise as a strategist to further her own career, and will later assert that she fell for his talent in the courtroom. Her desire to save Curry from himself seems genuine, but why does he reject her advances? By his own admission, it has ‘been a very long time’. Curry is a damaged character whose self-confidence is limited to his professional life, but neither Engineer’s attraction nor Curry’s prevarication is credible. The primary relationship might have read more plausibly had Curry been left in a thwarted intimacy with someone like Rumpole’s ‘She Who Must Be Obeyed’ – or, better yet, alone – if he could not engage in l’amour fou,likeScott Turow’s flawed prosecutor ‘Rusty’ Sabich.

The Curry–Engineer legal partnership is more rewarding. Their first case, defending the two women arrested in Ballina, defines Curry’s role as the legal mastermind and Engineer’s as his acolyte. The case teeters on a point so fine, only someone as au faitwith the law as Curry could pull it off. The ethics of his argument do not warrant much attention – winning is the goal. Engineer performs reasonably well as Curry’s mouthpiece, despite the self-deprecating assessment of her oratorical skills: ‘a pastiche of everyone who ever made a stumbling, bumbling plea in a magistrate’s court.’ The courtroom protocols are anachronistic and will scuttle any misconceptions derived from watching American television dramas. I don’t think it’s giving too much away to reveal that by page fifty-five Curry and Engineer have won their first case.

In subsequent cases they deal with an alleged Italian terrorist; the murder of a homeless man; an inquest into the cause of a bushfire; an assault charge; a judge accused of corruption. In their final case they defend Engineer’s very foolish cousin, nicknamed Baby, who is up on a rape charge. As they prepare and present their cases, we learn something of the cronyism of the legal profession, the machinations required to win, and the intricacies of the Australian judicial system. As interesting as these details may be, the Curry–Engineer cases become, like the Law & Order franchise, somewhat formulaic.

Harry Curry is not a Horace Rumpole nor a ‘Rusty’ Sabich. Stuart Littlemore is neither a John Mortimer nor a Scott Turow, which is as it should be – as every aspiring novelist knows, the trick is to find one’s own voice. Littlemore’s insider credentials lend veracity to the case histories in Harry Curry. His strength lies in descriptions of courtroom procedure and the minutiae of the law, but the narrative remains episodic and the characters two-dimensional. It is too late to change their irritatingly Dickensian names, but one hopes that, in the next instalment, Curry’s redemption through the offices of the beautiful Engineer will rise above cliché.

CONTENTS: JULY–AUGUST 2011