Blood Orange

The novel opens with a prologue narrated in second person, describing an unnamed individual performing a ritualized act of autoerotic asphyxiation, a practice of restricting oxygen to heighten sexual arousal. The person ties a rope to bookshelves, wraps it in silk, lights a cigarette, and slices a blood orange into eighths, using its citrus tang as a safeguard. The identity of this individual remains concealed until the final pages.

Alison Wood, a criminal barrister in her late thirties, learns she has been assigned her first murder case. She joins colleagues for drinks but spirals into heavy drinking. Patrick Saunders is the instructing solicitor on the case, the lawyer responsible for managing the client and briefing Alison for trial. He is also her secret lover of over a year. Patrick ignores her at the bar, chatting instead with Alexia, a trainee barrister. The night ends at chambers, the barristers' shared offices, where Alison and Patrick have rough sex on her desk, shattering a framed photograph of her six-year-old daughter, Matilda. Alison declares the affair over; Patrick dismisses this, noting she says it every time.

The next morning, Alison's husband, Carl Bailey, a psychotherapist and the family's primary caretaker, arrives with Matilda, who cuts her hand on the broken glass under the desk. Carl tells Alison she should behave "like a proper mother" (12). That evening, he forces her to watch a video he recorded of her performing drunken karaoke, making her confront how she appears to others.

The murder brief involves Madeleine Smith, a 44-year-old woman charged with stabbing her husband, Edwin, a wealthy asset manager, fifteen times in their bed. Patrick's firm is the instructing solicitor, ensuring Alison and Patrick remain professionally entangled. The prosecution evidence indicates Edwin was stabbed in his sleep with no defensive injuries; the family's cleaner found Madeleine sitting silently beside his body, covered in blood.

Alison and Patrick travel to Beaconsfield to meet Madeleine, who is staying with her sister, Francine. Madeleine is anxious and insists on pleading guilty. She provides a brief account: their fourteen-year-old son, James, was home from boarding school; Edwin told her he was leaving; she drank most of a bottle of gin, blacked out, and woke to find him dead with a knife at her feet.

Over subsequent conferences, Madeleine reveals disturbing details about Edwin's controlling behavior. He secretly administered contraceptive pills in her morning tea for two years, preventing a pregnancy she desperately wanted. He gave her an allowance, searched her bag, and broke her finger when she burned a dinner for his clients. Alison recognizes a pattern of coercive control, and Madeleine agrees to see a psychiatrist. During this period, Alison begins receiving anonymous threatening texts: "I know what ur doing u fucking slag" (70). She suspects they are connected to her affair but tells no one.

Alison's personal life deteriorates alongside the case. Her affair with Patrick oscillates between tenderness and cruelty, while Carl grows increasingly cold. A weekend getaway to Brighton ends in disaster when Alison blacks out after dinner; Carl drives home alone, telling her not to return until she is "fit to be around Matilda" (153). Meanwhile, witness statements strengthen Madeleine's defense: a friend describes bruises and cigarette burns, Madeleine's doctor documents years of injuries, and James's French tutor reports extensive bruising on the boy's ribs. At the Old Bailey, the central London court where England's most serious criminal cases are tried, Madeleine pleads not guilty.

When Carl takes Matilda away for several days, Patrick comes for dinner at Alison's home and becomes sexually aggressive, pinning her hands and refusing to stop when she says no, though he eventually relents. After Carl and Matilda return, a confrontation erupts: Carl seizes Alison's arms hard enough to leave marks, and Matilda appears crying in the doorway, asking if her parents are divorcing. Alison resolves to change and makes a genuine effort to be more present for her daughter.

James's witness statement describes his father beating him severely and notes that police came to the house twice but never arrested Edwin. Madeleine then provides her own account of the final weekend: Edwin punched her and threatened to kill them both, then fell asleep. She took a carving knife and stabbed him repeatedly: "I wanted to make sure he was dead, so he wouldn't ever be able to hurt us again" (208).

Catastrophe strikes when Matilda vanishes during a game of hide and seek on Hampstead Heath. A frantic search involving police and a helicopter ensues. Matilda is found safe, but Carl packs a bag and leaves, calling Alison a "dreadful mother" (257). He files for divorce, demands primary custody, and reveals he had a vasectomy shortly after Matilda's birth without telling Alison, having decided she was unfit to have another child. This secret act parallels Edwin's covert administration of contraceptive pills to Madeleine. Carl orders Alison to leave the house, and she checks into a Travelodge.

Patrick calls Alison at the Travelodge, having been charged with the rape of Caroline Napier, a senior barrister. When Alison learns that Alexia has also come forward with a rape allegation, she severs ties, telling Patrick she knows what he is capable of. Patrick throws a glass that cuts her face. The next morning, Chloe, a colleague now handling Patrick's caseload, calls to say Patrick threw himself under a train.

In a pivotal conference, Madeleine announces she wants to change her plea to guilty to protect James from testifying. Alison notices inconsistencies in Madeleine's language and asks directly whether James, not Madeleine, stabbed Edwin. After a long silence, Madeleine confirms: James stabbed his father after Edwin threatened to kill them both. Patrick knew from the start. Alison and Chloe agree to pursue a manslaughter plea, though doing so means misleading the court. Alison privately decides that if she proceeds, she will permanently leave practice as a barrister.

Alison then discovers the full scope of Carl's manipulation. He installed spyware on her phone, planted hidden cameras throughout the house, and sent all the anonymous threatening texts. He forces her to watch footage of her and Patrick, threatening to distribute it unless she gives up custody. When Alison encounters Caroline Napier, Caroline reveals that her therapist encouraged her to report Patrick and shows Alison the therapist's business card, which identifies him as Carl Bailey (322). Carl was counseling the woman who accused Patrick, exploiting the conflict of interest to destroy his wife's lover.

Alison rushes home, resolved to fight for Matilda. In the darkened living room, the television plays a video of Carl sexually assaulting Alison's unconscious body in the Brighton hotel room, revealing he exploited her blackout to assault her. She then sees Carl slumped off the sofa with his head in a noose tied to the bookcase, the same autoerotic asphyxiation setup from the prologue. He has accidentally gone too far and is choking, barely alive, his foot scrabbling for the coffee table. Alison pulls the table away, removing his only means of saving himself, and watches him die.

Five months later, Alison raises Matilda alone, working as a solicitor with Chloe. Carl's death was classified as accidental. Police found hidden cameras and video clips of other unconscious women on his computer, leading to further arrests. The prosecution accepts Madeleine's plea to voluntary manslaughter on the basis of loss of control, and she is sentenced to five years. James is safe. Alison reflects that the earliest footage of Carl assaulting her predates her affair with Patrick by a year. The police never asked about the precise timing of her arrival home the day Carl died, and she will never tell. In the final scene, Matilda peels an orange with a table knife, carefully and steadily. This time, there is no blood.