The Protest
ISBN: 9781804950548
Description
At a star-studded opening night for the Royal Academy’s celebration of renowned artist Max Bruce, someone is hiding a dark secret. As the night reaches its climax and Max addresses his admirers, the occasion takes a shocking turn when a protester runs from the crowd and sprays the artist with blue paint. Max collapses and it soon turns out that the paint was laced with cyanide. Someone has been plotting to kill him. All evidence points to the protestor – and newly qualified barrister Adam Green is assigned the impossible task of their defence.
Reviewed on 7th March 2026
The third book in Rob Rinder's series about the fictional junior barrister Adam Green sees him assigned a variety of cases, including a protestor who is accused of murder, and a soldier who is accused of a different murder.
I continue to enjoy the narratives, including the character's relationship with his mother, and with his female colleague whose interest in him he seems entirely unaware of, which adds much needed comedy to offset the potentially quite bleak aspects of the plot.
In this book, I'm not sure I understand how the various aspects of the plot are meant to gel together - it felt like two separate stories happening in parallel, almost as if neither idea really worked as a whole novel... but I was expecting some sort of overlap or thematic reflection between the two that never really transpired.
I'm not sure how I feel now about continuing with the fourth book - it might be that the enjoyment level isn't quite high enough.
