Every line delivered by the many characters-the two principals, their school chums (Barnes sketches their early lives), their families and many incidentals-rings with import. In this combination psychological novel, detective story and literary thriller, Barnes elegantly dissects early 20th-century English society as he spins this true-life story with subtle and restrained irony. Eventually, Sir Arthur ("Irish by ancestry, Scottish by birth") heard about George's case and began to advocate on his behalf. He was convicted of criminal behavior in a blatant miscarriage of justice based on racial prejudice. In 1903, George, a solicitor, was accused of writing obscene, threatening letters to his own family and of mutilating cattle in his farm community. Edalji was the son of a Parsi father (who was a Shropshire vicar), and a Scots mother. Arthur is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, physician, sportsman, gentleman par excellence and the inventor of Sherlock Holmes George is George Edalji, also a real, if less well-known person, whose path crossed not quite fatefully with the famous author's.
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