The law does not always punish the guilty

"The truth is a tricky issue," asserts prosecuting barrister Kate Woodcroft QC, at the beginning of Anatomy of a Scandal. After losing a case, the "forty-two years old; divorced, single, childless" woman is reflecting on the nature of the justice system in the UK, in which "you can win even if the evidence is stacked against you provided that you argue better." At the end of the chapter, Kate is presented with her next case.

We're then introduced to Sophie Whitehouse, "the most calm and controlled of individuals, who was brought up to temper any unpleasant feelings with dry humour or to keep them firmly suppressed." Her husband James is an up-and-coming junior minister and close friend of the Prime Minister. In the morning Sophie is a happy mother and wife, but by the evening her world is thrown into disarray by the discovery of her husband's five-month affair with his parliamentary researcher, Olivia Lytton. Handsome and charming, "someone who exercises strong self-control and is capable of great discipline," James confesses to the affair, but worse is soon to come, when Olivia accuses him of rape. This is the case that Kate must prosecute.

Sarah Vaughan see-saws the narrative of the story between the present day court case in London, and twenty-three years earlier at Oxford University, where James and Sophie met. We discover that something significant happened during their student days, and for the canny reader, the text carries plenty of clues.

It's a fast-moving story and covers several themes, including privilege, 'relationship' rape, and especially justice, or rather injustice, since "the law does not always punish the guilty."