The Prosecutor: One Man’s Pursuit of Justice for the Voiceless
NAZIR AFZAL
(EBURY PRESS, 304 PP, £16.99)
Tablet bookshop price £15.29 • Tel 020 7799 4064

If I read another book this year equal in quality and importance to The Prosecutor, it will have been an exceptional 12 months. The book is about the author’s vocation, and what he has to say is of importance to all of us who care about the society in which we live. Afzal is proud to be a British Muslim, and his story is addressed to those of us who believe in justice as the raison d’être of our legal system. He describes how his father quietly set about wiping away the blood left on his son’s face when, as a young teenager, he was randomly set upon by thugs. Afzal tells his father that he will seek justice through the police. His father tells him quietly that there is no justice for those citizens who are people of colour. The Prosecutor is the record of one son refusing to accept what his father deems the beastly truth of racism in this country.