A long brief

Random reflections of a man whose life has been full, intensely interesting, and very often exciting. It is a human story, for most of his work–presenting the case for the Crown through some thirty years of criminal trials, helping to sort out the tangles of Maori land ownership, and Samoan affairs–has involved people.

Sir Vincent was a natural raconteur, and could have filled many volumes with memorable tales. Here are the best of them, each in its own way highlighting some aspect of the law, the breaking of it, and its enforcement. Although there is much that is amusing, there are, too, many violent, macabre, and horrible things in this book, as Sir Vincent describes, in part or in full, the crime and the trial of many of the famous cases in which he figured as Crown Solicitor. One or two of these cases attracted world legal attention.

From this book, too, one learns something of his boyhood and his background, his strong feelings towards football, and other games, his work as selector for both provincial and international teams–and his managership of two All Black tours.

He died in 1965.