The Witness We Prepared by Bill Stewart

My first serious venture into fiction under my own name

“If you have read any of my other books, you will know that I don’t usually make things up.”

That line opens the author’s note in The Witness We Prepared, my forthcoming courtroom thriller. For readers familiar with my non-fiction, it also introduces a new direction in my writing.

My usual work begins with real events, documentary evidence and questions about how things happened. This novel began with a question too:

What if a witness’s most convincing answer was never entirely her own?

An answer rehearsed. A consequence that lasts.

Set in Bristol, The Witness We Prepared centres on barrister Daniel Mercer and the consequences of testimony shaped before it reaches the courtroom.

A nervous witness. An uncertain memory. A reassuring voice offering words that sound clearer than the ones she arrived with.

An answer is repeated until it begins to feel like her own.

The novel explores how such a moment can echo through other people’s lives—and what happens when someone involved must finally answer questions about his own part in it.

From investigating events to creating a story

This is my first serious venture into fiction under my own name, bringing with it my longstanding interest in evidence, accountability and the decisions people make under pressure.

Writing it gave me room to explore the private consequences of those decisions: the explanations people cling to, the loyalties they protect and the cost of speaking plainly.

The characters and cases are fictional, with Bristol providing the setting.

For existing readers, I hope it offers a compelling new reason to turn the page. For readers discovering my work through this novel, welcome.

The Witness We Prepared — a courtroom thriller by Bill Stewart — is coming soon from Stewart Independent Publishing Group.

Publication details and the purchase link will follow here on Billy’s Book Club.

As I put it in the author’s note:

“Facts remain my first love. This time, the question led me into fiction.”