‘The Honourable Member for Murder’ by David Weir

Published by Allison & Busby,
20 August 2026. 
ISBN: 978-0-7490-3379-8 )PB

Ever wondered what really goes on behind the elegant doors of Parliament? Who really does the work, sorts the problems, finds solutions to the issues raised by the likes of you and me? David Weir worked behind the scenes in those hallowed surroundings for quite a few years – and it's a well known adage that if you want to know what really happens, it's the people behind the scenes who have the best view. 

The inner workings of the Palace of Westminster were made hilarious on TV by Yes, Minister; Weir has chosen to do it in book form. With a murder or two thrown in to make it more interesting. 

Eliot Oakcroft MP is best described as clueless. He's also lazy, self-important and ambitious, and far more interested in which attractive lady to take for lunch than in doing anything productive. Most people see through him – the parliamentary hierarchy certainly have – and it's down to his longstanding chief of staff Maxwell Murray and Max's sharp-as-a-tack assistant Diana to pick up the pieces and ensure Eliot is where he should be and when. 

Eliot has been shunted by the Whips into the chair of a committee charged with considering miscarriages of justice, and one morning an e-mail arrives from Miranda Cley, a young woman who believes her mother Rebecca has been wrongly imprisoned for the murder of her father Charlie. Eliot decides that investigating the case will give his career an invaluable boost – which naturally means that Maxwell and Diana have even more work than usual to do. 

Charlie Cley is quickly revealed as a bit of a character, a chancer and Lothario who fronts – or fronted – a PR company, in partnership with his far more sensible – and money-wise – brother Tim. Miranda is young, pretty and prone to tears, and Rebecca just wants it all to be over. What emerges from Max and Diana's investigation is a tangled web of monumental proportions. Eliot wafts around the sidelines, showing Miranda  around the House, offering to take Rebecca to lunch at every opportunity, while Max and Diana encounter several well-portrayed minor characters, uncover fraud, corruption and all manner of nefarious doings with the able assistance of Max's sister Ronni, an investigative journalist who is even sharper than Diana and has some very useful skills. 

Is Charlie Cley really dead? And more important, will Eliot Oakcroft MP rise to the dizzy heights of junior minister on the back of the investigation? And will Max, Diana and Ronni's sterling work receive any credit at all? If you enjoyed Yes, Minister (and who didn't?), you'll enjoy finding out.  
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick. 

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen, and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher for a few years and is proud to have launched several careers which are now burgeoning. She lives in Oxfordshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction.