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A Clear Conscience is one of the Helen West novels in Frances Fyfield's long British legal-procedural series. Helen is a Crown Prosecution Service lawyer with the kind of difficult conscience that her colleagues find exhausting. The case involves a brutal beating and the prosecution's reluctance to pursue charges that are likely to fail.
Fyfield is one of the most quietly serious crime writers of her generation. The prose is sharp and the moral pressure is genuine. The political compromise that the CPS makes with the police is documented without polemic. Helen's personal relationships are handled with the same patient attention the case gets.
Four stars. Recommended to readers who like their British procedural with serious moral weight. Read in series order if possible; the Helen West character development pays off across the run.
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