Dirty Briefs

Dirty Briefs is an uncensored memoir by pseudonymous Dave Fendem on his life and career as a criminal defense and prosecuting barrister. Due out in fourth quarter 2022 from Mardle Books, it's 240 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats. 

This is a book filled with an exhausting abundance of puerile jollity and almost desperately clever riposte. In many ways, it's amusing in the same way that adults try not to laugh when a toddler declaims (loudly and often) some rugged Anglo-Saxon monosyllable just to get a rise out of the grown-ups in the room. 

There -are- some genuinely funny moments which surprised a giggle out of me, but they were few and far between. The author pokes fun at more or less everyone. He has a stunning lack of respect for law enforcement, judges, his colleagues and opponents in court, his clients, his family, his housemates during his time reading law, and others. He declaims with pride about his sexual conquests, and all of the myriad dodgy behaviour which his facility with falsehood has mitigated or got him out of outright. 

He saves a particularly virulent disdain for the majority(?) of his fellow barristers who are themselves products of a public school and upper class background in contrast to the decidedly less rarefied upbringing of the author himself. He does have moderate facility with the written word and the whole is readable and entertaining. It would possibly be a good, undemanding, travel read as long as nobody but the reader can see the page, since the book is peppered with rough language and admittedly funny/shocking/inappropriate descriptions. Decidedly and emphatically NSFW.

Three and a half stars. I'm not sure for whom the book is actually intended. Spelling, grammar, and vernacular/slang are British English but will pose no difficulties in context for readers from outside the UK.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.