Sally Smith
Sally Smith is a London barrister and KC. Her biography of famous Edwardian barrister Sir Edward Marshall Hall has attracted significant critical acclaim since it was published in 2016. Her award-winning and much loved Trials of Gabriel Ward series of murder mysteries is published by Bloomsbury Raven.
A Case of Mice and Murder is the first in this series of ingenious murder mysteries set at the beginning of the Edwardian era and centred in the Temple, the area of legal London whose curious history and arcane traditions continue to fascinate so many. The series introduces Gabriel Ward, a brilliant but reclusive barrister who lives and works in the Inner Temple, rarely venturing outside its precincts. When he finds the Lord Chief Justice stabbed to death on the doorstep, Gabriel’s privileged little world is shaken to its core, and he is forced to turn sleuth.
In May 2026 A Case of Mice and Murder won Best Crime Novel of the Year 2026 at the annual British Book Awards celebration.
The second novel in the series, A Case of Life and Limb, finds Gabriel hard at work on a thorny libel case involving a famous music hall star and a notorious tabloid newspaper, but the Inner Temple remains as quiet and calm as ever. Quiet, that is, until the mummified hand arrives in the post…
A Case of Life and Limb was chosen a Waterstones Book of the Month, a Literary Review Book of the Year, and shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association Historical Dagger Award 2026.
Gabriel will return in the eagerly awaited A Case of Fear and Favour, to be published in January 2027.