Arthur Beachamp, 62, is a legend in his own time for his brilliant work as a defence attorney.

But he has a humiliating secret.

Known publicly for his formidable power in the courtroom, Beachamp (pronounced Beecham) is wracked by private fears and marital troubles. It seems the legend suffers from impotence, and his glamorous wife Annabelle, 10 years his junior, turns to other men for sexual satisfaction.

Beachamp is a departure from the legal superstars William Deverell usually writes about. He’s pompous and self-indulgent, and Deverell dutifully records each flowery thought, Latin poetry quotation, and elaborate sentence that crosses his character’s mind or lips.

The pace picks up, however, when Beachamp experiences a mild stroke and, after joining AA and starting out on a new life on his own, buys an old house and 18 acres on Garibaldi Island, a short ferry ride from his sumptuous Vancouver home and lawyerly haunts.

At first totally inept in his new surroundings, he learns to garden and cook. The encounters with his new neighbours – half the island’s 539 residents are wealthy boomers who want to develop a new subdivision and half are aging hippies opposed to the idea – are often hilarious. Both sides are keen on wooing the stuffed-shirt newcomer to their side, but Beachamp is more interested in some unaccustomed stirrings he is experiencing over the attractive widow next door.

The bucolic life suits him, but it’s too good to last. Soon he is dragooned into defending a University of British Columbia law prof charged with raping a female student. The case turns into a legal and emotional sinkhole as psychiatrists discover long-repressed traumas in the backgrounds of both accused and accuser.

The trial wallows in trendy issues, and it wobbles right off the rails at times, but it all serves to snap the distracted Beachamp to attention, if not in the belief that his client is innocent, at least so he can get the mess behind him and get back to the new loves of his life.

In a way, this story is a treatise on love and its power over our lives. Beachamp’s inner fears become the reader’s as the full extent of his vulnerability is revealed. It’s an entertaining package, though difficult to compare to Deverell’s seven previous mystery novels because it veers off in so many new directions.