WITH a grin, Rob Rinder reveals that for his debut novel he took no tips from Fifty Shades Of Grey author EL James.
Instead, he looked to crime queen Agatha Christie.
Judge Rob Rinder says Agatha Christie inspired the sex scenes in his new book
Rob has been close friends Benedict Cumberbatch since they attended university in Manchester
That is why there is no sex in The Trial, although it has lots of thrills and spills.
Criminal barrister and TV host Rob — known as Judge Rinder for his courtroom reality TV show of that name, says: “The guiding light for any whodunnit writer is Agatha Christie, and you won’t find much banging happening in Death On The Nile.
“What we’re interested in is solving the puzzle.”
Looking tanned after filming his latest TV gig — Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond The Lobby — he admits there is a dash of himself in his lead character, Adam Green.
Like Rob, Adam is a Jewish, working-class North Londoner who becomes a criminal barrister.
Adam is fussed over by his mum, who brings food to his flat and tries to find him a Mrs Right.
And Rob, 45, who has also presented ITV’s Good Morning Britain, says: “Like Adam’s mother, my mum has the incurable gift of unconditional love.”
Rob was brought up in Southgate, North London.
His parents David and Angela both lost relatives in the Holocaust.
Angela admits she was too young when she wed black cab driver David at 19.
They split a decade later but both sides of the family remained in her sons’ lives.
Rob’s older brother Craig became a City trader while Rob attended drama school.
He says: “My brother and dad were super-close because they have religion in common — and I don’t mean Judaism, I mean Tottenham Hotspur.”
The football was never for Rob, who recalls nodding off before kick-off at a game his dad took him to.
But Craig is such a big Spurs fan that when Rob revealed he was gay, he said: “I don’t care what you are, just as long as you’re not Arsenal.”
Rob is now single, after amicably splitting from fellow barrister Seth Cummings in 2018.
They married five years earlier in an Ibiza ceremony officiated by actor pal Benedict Cumberbatch.
Rob tells me: “The wedding was amazing, even if the marriage didn’t work out.”
Angela, who set up her own desktop publishing business while raising Rob and Craig, is now head of the ’45 Aid Society, a charity founded in 1963 by Holocaust survivors.
In 2018, BBC TV series Who Do You Think You Are? told the story of Rob’s maternal grandfather Morris Malinicky, who survived the Holocaust and came to Britain.
Morris’s parents and five siblings died at the Nazis’ Treblinka camp.
It is Morris who Rob credits with his decision to take up law.
He says: “My grandfather was in love with Britishness — which for him meant democracy under rule of law — in a way only someone who has been touched by tyranny can appreciate.”
Rob’s dad David, 70, now suffers from Lewy body dementia, which has “robbed him of being present in delight”.
But, voice quivering, Rob says: “Dad has always been really proud of me.”
Rob attended the National Youth Theatre with 12 Years A Slave actor Chiwetel Ejiofor and Little Britain stars Matt Lucas and David Walliams.
But he quit acting in his first year at Manchester University after witnessing Sherlock star and close mate Benedict at audition.
Rob says: “I was OK but realised that, unlike Benedict, I’d never be great. I felt I would inevitably end up with a bit part on Heartbeat.
On leaving university with a double-first in politics and modern history, he became a barrister in 2001.
He practised for more than a decade, representing people accused of crimes “however odious”.
Once he even defended local National Front leaders who told him they were glad he “wasn’t a y** or a queer”.
Away from court, he wrote drama scripts to submit for TV.
It led to his own show as Judge Rinder, in which he arbitrated on small civil claims, with put-downs like, “I can smell a lie like a fart in a lift.”
His novel now follows Adam as he unpicks suggestions that a career criminal murdered a hero cop.
As well as being earmarked for a follow-up, it has been optioned for TV. And it is easy to see why — it’s a pacy and gripping read.
Rob adds of Adam: “He’s not the obvious person you would assume would become a barrister.
“For me, too, that was what other people did. Having had an ambitious mother changed things.
“Nevertheless, you never feel you necessarily belong.”
Yet he loves fame and adds: “It’s magic to improve the emotional chemistry of someone’s day by posing for a selfie.”
I ask if he might replace Phillip Schofield on This Morning.
“No!” he squeals, adding that he has not met him but knows Holly Willoughby to be “really nice”.
And what of talk he may stand for London Mayor? He says: “I’m not a member of a political party, so that might be a barrier.”
- The Trial by Rob Rinder is out now, published by Century, £20 in hardback, £9.99 ebook and £13 Audiobook. Hear Rob chat about his book at Waterstones Piccadilly in London on Thursday. Tickets from Waterstones.com.
Rob found fame with his ITV court room show Judge Rinder
Rob backed our Jabs Army campaign during Covid
Rob with his proud mum Angela
