There’s a killer in court but are they in the dock: A Trial in Three Acts by Guy Morpuss #bookreview #ATrialinThreeActs #NetGalley

A trial is rather like a play.
We wear our costumes. We perform to the audience.
And on a good day no-one gets murdered.
Six nights a week the cast of the smash-hit play Daughter of the Revolution performs to a sold-out audience. A thrilling story of forbidden marriage and a secret love child, the critics say it’ll run for years. That is until one night the third act ends not in applause but in death, when leading lady Alexandra Dyce is beheaded live on stage.
Every cast member has a motive, but it is the dead woman’s co-star – and ex-husband – Hollywood legend Leo Lusk who is charged with the crime. When defence barrister Charles Konig is brought in last minute, he knows this ought to be the case of a lifetime. But Charles would rather be on his holiday trekking up K2, and he isn’t interested in celebrities, especially ones that seem to be mysteriously trying to derail their own defence. But as he and his co-counsel New York lawyer Yara Ortiz sift through the evidence, it becomes clear that clues may lie in the play itself. And that Charles’s only chance of victory is to identify the real murderer…

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Hi and welcome to my review of A Trial in Three Acts!

I’ve been a fan of Guy Morpuss’s books since day one and so A Trial in Three Acts was one of my most anticipated reads of 2025. While I must admit it wasn’t my favourite of his novels, I still had a great time with it.

I’m not the biggest fan of legal thrillers or courtroom dramas, it’s certainly a subgenre I can enjoy but in moderation, it’s not one I seek out. Having said this, I really did enjoy the courtroom scenes in A Trial in Three Acts, and I loved the denouement, and I’m sure that if legal thrillers and courtroom dramas are your bag, you will gobble this one up! While reading, it’s clear that the author knows what he’s talking about, and from the afterword, it would appear that multiple real-life anecdotes made it into the book.

Based on that aspect of A Trial in Three Acts, as well as the murder mystery and the main characters and their interaction, I’d give it a solid five stars. However, two other aspects worked less for me personally. Firstly, the letters to The Times, which apparently is something the author does himself. While entertaining enough, those short intermezzos didn’t further the plot, and they took me out of the story a little bit. For me, incorporating those texts in another way, like having Charles weave them into a conversation, would have been more effective. But maybe I’m missing something? Is this a typically British custom I didn’t know about?

Secondly, and I really don’t know what happened there, I’m surprised at myself, and not in a good way, the historical facts behind the play just didn’t appeal to me all that much. While reading, I did appreciate why the historical bits and the play elements mattered, and in hindsight it’s even more clear just how much they matter. It’s just that, for some reason unbeknownst to even myself, I wasn’t as fascinated by them as I should have been.

All in all, I did have a really good time with A Trial in Three Acts. Despite the things that didn’t entirely work for me, I found it an engrossing read that kept me guessing for a long time. 

A Trial in Three Acts is out in hardcover, digital formats and audio on 6 March.

Massive thanks to Viper Books and NetGalley for the DRC. All opinions are my own.