Helen Fields was a criminal barrister and is now the best-selling author of ten crime fiction novels. As a barrister, she wasn’t writing fiction but says there was a lot of other writing involved. ‘Writing an opening speech to a jury, setting out the case coherently but in an interesting way,’ she explains. ‘Composing a closing speech, fashioning the facts the way that best promoted my case. Preparing crossexamination questions to expose case weaknesses. All of that had to be done under time pressure and
