As a young Australian barrister, Robertson found himself involved in the Oz trial; a frothingly moralistic judge went to some lengths to jail three editors of an underground magazine, and was duly humiliated on appeal. Success leads to opportunity; Robertson has found himself at the heart of a sequence of crucial freedom of expression trials - the Gay News blasphemy trial, the attempt to bust the National theatre over a play in which male rape took place, the arrest of a painter whose chosen subject was bank notes. His account of his career concentrates on these, and on his own entire brilliance in them; he is not a modest man, nor is there any particular reason why he should be, especially given how sharp and witty his accounts are. Robertson has also been involved in other causes celebres - he knows all about the Michael X case, and a variety of other capital cases in the Caribbean, and is fascinating on the Matrix Churchill case and the various libel actions around the and "cash for questions and " sleaze row. Anyone interested in the issues is going to find this a useful book - but the average intelligent reader is going to find the account of courtroom battles a guilty pleasure in itself. - Roz Kaveney