One-Line Summary
Suzie Miller’s Prima Facie is both novel and indictment — a work that grips like a thriller yet burns like a manifesto.
Opening Impression
A former human-rights barrister, Miller writes with the precision of lived experience, turning legal language into emotional weaponry. What begins as courtroom drama becomes moral confrontation, asking who justice serves — and who it breaks.
Synopsis
Tessa Ensler’s ascent from working-class childhood to London’s criminal bar is shattered when she herself becomes a complainant in a sexual-assault case. Once master of cross-examination, she now faces the same credibility traps she used to win cases. The law she believed in turns predator.
Analysis
Structure: Theatre-sharp monologue energy; disciplined courtroom beats; relentless moral escalation.
Characterisation: Tessa is fierce, brilliant, devastated — and rebuilding. A complex feminist protagonist built with precision and fury.
Style & Voice: Knife-clean prose, rhythmic and urgent, blending legal cadence with emotional rawness.
Themes: Consent, power, class, the violence of credibility tests; whether justice can exist inside structures built to silence.
Verdict
Prima Facie turns the courtroom into moral theatre. Blistering, humane, and necessary — a novel that cross-examines the reader as fiercely as its characters. Literature as evidence. Justice on trial.
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