Trials

Winner of the Saltire Society First Book Award 2016An Economist Book of the Year 2016A Spectator Book of the Year 2016In 2011, Isabel Buchanan, a twenty-three-year-old Scottish lawyer, moved to Pakistan to work in a new legal chambers in Lahore. The chambers was run by a determined thirty-three-year-old Pakistani lawyer, Sarah Belal, who had finally found her calling in defending inmates on Pakistan s death row.Belal and Buchanan struck up an unlikely friendship, forged through working in a system that was instinctively hostile to newcomers and doubly so if they were female. At Sarah s side, and with the help of Nasar, the firm s legendary clerk, Buchanan plunged into the strange and complex world of Pakistan s justice system. The work was arduous, underfunded, and dangerous. But for a young Scottish lawyer like Buchanan it was an unparalleled education, offering a window onto a much-misunderstood country and culture. Filled with beautifully drawn characters, she creates a narrative brimming with ideas and bursting with humanity. It is a story of Pakistan, but it is also a universal story of the pursuit of justice in an uncertain world.