Arthur Beauchamp

Winner of the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Mystery Novel, 1998 Winner of the Dashiell Hammett Award, 1998 Arthur Beauchamp, one of Vancouver's most heralded criminal lawyers, has moved to a quiet island off the British Columbia coast. He's trying to recover from a marriage gone sour, but his retirement is interrupted by his former law partners - they want Arthur to take charge of the defense trial of Jonathan O'Donnell, the acting dean of the law school. O'Donnell has been accused of rape by one of his students, Kimberley Martin, a smart but arrogant woman who is engaged to a rich businessman. If convicted, O'Donnell understands that his career will implode; he believes that only Arthur Beauchamp can save his professional life. After much pleading, Beauchamp agrees to handle the case. He is drawn into a complex legal situation dealing with gender and sex, while his personal life takes a provocative turn as well. A courtroom drama ensues, with unpredictable twists and bizarre events. When published in Canada, Trial of Passion won the 1998 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Mystery Novel. And even though it hadn't yet been released in the U.S., the book was nevertheless winner of the 1998 Dashiell Hammett Award "for a work of literary excellence in the field of crime writing" as chosen by the North American branch of the International Association of Crime Writers. In the tradition of Scott Turow, lawyer William Deverell knows his subject. And like Turow, Deverell is a fine writer - his characters come alive, his legal arguments are thorny, his plot rushes to the end. Released in a quality trade format, Trial of Passion will be sought out by crime and mystery readers interested in a prize-winning author.

A new edition of the Arthur Ellis Award winning crime novel Arthur Beauchamp, the scholarly, self-doubting legend of the B.C. criminal bar, is enjoying his retirement on B.C.'s Garibaldi Island when he is dragged back to court to defend an old client. Nick "The Owl" Faloon, one of the world's top jewel thieves, has been accused of raping and murdering a psychologist. Beauchamp has scarcely registered how unlikely it is that the rascally Faloon could commit a savage murder when his own personal life takes an abrupt turn. His new wife, Margaret Blake, organic farmer and environmental activist, has taken up residence 50 feet above ground in a tree of an old-growth forest that she is determined to save for the eagles and from the loggers. Beauchamp shuttles between Vancouver and the island, doing what he can to defend Faloon, save the forest, and rescue his wife. Part courtroom thriller, part classic whodunit, April Fool sees Deverell writing at the top of his form, with a big dollop of humor.

Is someone systematically killing the judges of the B.C. bar? At least one has been, murdered and several have disappeared. Arthur Beauchamp returns from retirement once again to take on the case, this time defending his former nemesis, backwoods poet Cudworth Brown, and tracking down a mystery novel that Brown's unreliable former lawyer has been, writing, all this just as his own wife, Margaret, has announced her candidacy for the Green Party in a forthcoming federal by-election. Complex, madcap, and peopled with some of the most delightfully eccentric characters to be, found between two covers, Kill All the Judges more than proves William Deverell's mastery of the hilarious crime novel. Is someone systematically killing the judges of the B.C. bar? At least one has been, murdered and several have disappeared. Arthur Beauchamp returns from retirement to take on the case, this time defending his former nemesis, backwoods poet Cudworth Brown, and tracking down a mystery novel that Brown's unreliable former lawyer has been writing.

Arthur Beauchamp moves to Ottawa, and all hell breaks loose Arthur Beauchamp has followed his wife, the leader and first elected member of the Green Party, to Ottawa. But, he hates it there: the cold, the politics, the apartment, his place in his wife's shadow. So when a diplomatic delegation from Bhashyistan is blown sky-high on Bronson Avenue and the shares of a Calgary-based oil company promptly drop like a stone, in no time at all, he's tangled up with wily civil servants, gung-ho cabinet members, recently released eco-terrorists, and possibly the most incompetent spy since Mata Hari. Meanwhile, on Beauchamp's beloved Garibaldi Island, Arthur and Margaret's goat farm is being taken care of by a couple of newly released, convicted eco-terrorists, a matter that brings them to the attention of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, and a scheming glint to the eye of its head of operations. When a diplomatic delegation from Bhashyistan is, blown sky-high on Bronson Avenue, the shares of a Calgary-based oil company promptly drop like a stone. In no time at all, Arthur Beauchamp is tangled up with wily civil servants, gung-ho cabinet members, recently released eco-terrorists, and possibly the most incompetent spy since Mata Hari.

Arthur Beauchamp, after a successful and much-lauded career at the criminal bar, is now retired to Garibaldi Island. His immediate desire is to win the Mabel Orfmeister Trophy for the Most Points in Fruits and Vegetables at the Garibaldi Island fall fair. With his crop picked and packed, Beauchamp is ready to do battle. While waiting for the judges, he can muse on his recently published biography by one Wentworth Chance. It is appropriately florid, with enough catty, references to make it readable. And, it takes Beauchamp back to his first big criminal case in 1962, the one, in legal terms, that "made him." The trial of Gabriel Swift was front-page news. Swift was the Indigenous gardener of Professor Dermot Mulligan, but he was far more than a servant. He was one of Mulligan's stars, a brilliant mind to mentor. Arthur Beauchamp knows all about that, because he too was one of Mulligan's best and brightest. When Mulligan disappears, in unusual circumstances, suspicion falls on Swift even though Mulligan's widow insists he couldn't have done it and much of the evidence leans toward suicide. The trial of Gabriel Swift was front-page news. Swift, an Indigenous activist, did yard chores for Professor Mulligan, but he was far more than a servant. He was one of Mulligan's stars, a brilliant mind to mentor. When Mulligan disappears, suspicion falls on Swift even though Mulligan's widow insists he couldn't have done it.

Everything is going well for Arthur Beauchamp in his early middle age. Life is so good for the top-notch defense lawyer that, in a moment of career restlessness, he decides to switch sides, just the once, and prosecute a young man charged with murdering a clown. Beauchamp is confident he can prove Randolph Skyler is guilty. Confident, but still worried and surprisingly blind to how precarious the evidence is - and, worse, to the fissures opening in his personal life. It's a case Beauchamp will never forget, not even years later, when he's happily remarried and retired to a bucolic life on Garibaldi Island in the glorious Salish Sea. As Beauchamp is about to learn, the older you get, the greater the chance is that the past will come back to bite you. In Deverell's latest marvel in his Beauchamp series, Arthur has causes aplenty to sing a worried song.

The toughest case of Beauchamp's brilliant career features sex, slander, and dirty politics Montreal journalist Lou Sabatino, under witness protection after nearly being gunned down by the Mafia, is sucked into the quirky world of a conniving Russian dominatrix who has secretly recorded herself putting the whip to the bare bottom of a high-ranking federal cabinet minister. It's the scoop of the century, but too hot a potato - if Lou breaks the story, he risks exposing himself to the mercies of the Mafia. Instead, he shows the video to Green Party leader Margaret Blake. The video is leaked, and Margaret is sued by the minister for $50 million. Enter Arthur Beauchamp, Margaret's husband and famed criminal lawyer, who had found - or so he hoped - blissful retirement on idyllic Garibaldi Island on the West Coast. But now he's representing the woman he loves while tormented by fears that she's embroiled in an affair. Whether you're encountering Arthur Beauchamp for the first time or have followed him from his first case, Whipped will entertain as it keeps you turning the pages. The toughest case of Beauchamp's brilliant career features sex, slander, and dirty politics

Award—winning novelist William Deverell is back with a new Arthur Beauchamp legal thriller. Lawyer Arthur Beauchamp is facing the most explosive trial of his career: the defence of seven boisterous environmentalists accused of sabotaging an Ontario plant that pumps out a pesticide that has led to the mass death of honeybees. The story zigzags between Toronto, where the trial takes place, and Arthur's West Coast island home, where he finds himself arrested for fighting his own environmental cause: the threatened destruction of a popular park. The Toronto trial concludes with a tense, hang-by-the-fingernails jury verdict. Realistic and riveting, Stung is a propulsive legal thriller by a beloved author at the height of his powers. When an oddball group of ecology-minded people determine that a chemical factory is producing an agricultural pesticide that is also killing bees, they decide to sabotage its manufacture. Criminal lawyer Arthur Beauchamp is tasked with their defense in a tense, hang-by-the-fingernails trial. After careers as a journalist, criminal lawyer, and political activist, William Deverell turned to fiction and on his first effort won the $50,000 Seal First Novel Award. Since then, he has earned multiple prizes for his 20 published novels, including the Dashiell Hammett Prize for literary excellence in crime writing in North America, two Crime Writers of Canada Awards (formerly the Arthur Ellis Award)for best Canadian novel, and two runners-up for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. He holds two honorary Doctor of Letters degrees. He lives in Pender Island, B.C. Cuddling a nearly new laptop - I just got it today - I pause halfway down the stairs and listen to Arthur taunt Ariana Van Doorn in the moose room. She will make her debut tomorrow, and Arthur and Nancy are prepping her. "Necessity? Necessity? My dear Professor Van Doorn, why was it so critical, so necessary, to commit a serious criminal offence, a surreptitious break-and-enter by night, when no one's life was in immediate peril?" "Excuse me, my field is biology-" "It's a simple question, madam, I'd like an answer, please." Arthur has Khan's slightly old-school accent down pat. "Okay, in my opinion, people have been hurt, they were in immediate peril. According to the pesticide poisoning statistics we heard yesterday, one in 12,500 users accidentally imbibe insecticides in any given year-" "Immediate peril, not some accident in the vague future..." "Objection, counsel is baiting the witness, and is also being ridiculous." That's Nancy. Ariana gives a throaty laugh. I carry on down to the back patio with the Dell notebook. Okie Joe will be stopping over to make sure it isn't rigged to explode in my face. I pack a pipe with pot. I'm seeing criminal law in a new light. There's flexibility to it. I find it profoundly creative of Arthur and Nancy to have made adjustments on the fly to the frail defence of necessity. They've narrowed its focus to real people, like the unlikely duo of Barney Wilson and Charlie Dover. Most people are deaf to the climate crisis, they don't want to hear about the bees, it's all too depressing and abstract. It was maybe asking too much of our jury to conclude we had to knock over an insecticide lab as a wakeup call against planetary collapse. But the poisoning of a fellow hominid brings it home. Because we raided the Vigor-Gro plant, because we exposed their corrupted tests, because we spoke up, because of the publicity, because of this very trial, we have rescued farmers susceptible to what we now call the Dover-Wilson Syndrome. That's the essence of today's testimony from an agricultural economist, a climatologist, and an actuarial scientist with a doctorate in statistics. Together, with reams of tables and stats and graphs and international sales figures for Vigor-Gro, they made a case that it.

Arthur Beauchamp takes a break from the courtroom to write a memoir so he can set the record straight about a headline murder case he fought as a young lawyer in 1966. The trial would either mark him as a pathetic loser or thrust him into the top ranks of criminal counsel. The background: in 1966, a young housemaid was raped by her employer, a callous and vindictive millionaire. She shot him point blank, so it seemed an open-and-shut case of first-degree murder. Enter Arthur Beauchamp, a young lawyer haunted by having bungled his only previous murder case. He is now called upon to defend a case that he is almost certain can't be won. But as the trial speeds through twists and turns, his slashing cross-examinations bring hope that the jury might entertain a reasonable doubt. In the present time, Arthur learns that writing about his social gaffes, booze, and sex is not easy, especially as his efforts are regularly interrupted by the quirky characters who inhabit his supposedly idyllic Garibaldi Island. Arthur Beauchamp writes a memoir that he hopes will set the record straight about a spectacular murder case he fought as a young lawyer in 1966.