Legal Crime Fiction

When the daughter of prominent civil litigator Graham Hutchins is found with her throat slashed, the woman's spurned ex-boyfriend seems the likely suspect. But only days later, the young man dies in what appears to be a suicide. Or was it? Now authorities are faced with a possible new crime. And their person of interest is Hutchins. After all, avenging the death of his daughter is the perfect reason to kill. If he's as innocent as he claims, only one lawyer has what it takes to prove it: his friend and colleague Samantha Brinkman.

While Anna is enjoying a romantic dinner capped off by a marriage proposal, a few miles away two separate groups are gearing up to raid a brothel. A vicious killer known as Diablo - the Devil - leads one group. A few minutes later, Anna’s own investigative team heads in to search the brothel, as part of the fight against human trafficking in D.C. Both groups are caught off guard, with deadly results.

Assistant District Attorney Butch Karp is finally recognized for his heroic service to New York City when a group of politicians back him for the top job as Manhattan's district attorney. But a series of cases involving vigilante murders begins to reveal the true motives of those civil servants standing by his side. It's Karp versus the dirty city in one of Tanenbaum's most revealing and caustic legal thrillers - a stunning indictment of civil corruption and overreach.

Aaron Littmann, the chairman of one of the country's most prestigious law firms, has just been contacted by a high-profile defense attorney whose client is Nikolai Garkov, a Russian businessman arraigned on terrorism charges for pulling the financial strings behind recent treasonous acts. The attorney informs Aaron that Garkov is looking to switch representation and will pay $100,000 just to take the meeting.

J.D. Scrbacek has just won the biggest trial of his career, but even as he crows to the press, his entire life blows sky-high. Was the bomb meant for him, or for his mobster client? In this seaside casino town where the tables run hot and the tensions run high, the odds say the attorney is a marked man. Alone and on the run, Scrbacek flees into the city's forgotten underbelly, a ruined corridor called Crapstown, where he is forced to confront the ghosts of his past, his present, and his future.

Originally published by Pocket Books as Court of Honor, this classic by Wood - the basis for the 1995 film Broken Trust starring Tom Selleck - is is the story of a sitting judge who finds himself in a dangerous position when he participates in a sting operation investigating fellow judges on the take.

Joe Parker is Manchester's most ingenious criminal defence lawyer. Sam Parker is Manchester's most tenacious homicide detective. Both bear the burden of the unsolved murder of their sister fifteen years earlier. And both have a stake in a new series of murders that has shaken their city to its core. Ronnie Bagley is locked up and facing trial for the murder of his girlfriend and baby and there's only one lawyer he wants to defend him: Joe Parker.

Stan's bankruptcy client, Maureen Thompson, is accused of her husband's murder. Her alleged motive is the proceeds of a large insurance policy on her husband's life that would cure her financial woes. Stan assigns the case to his partner, Paula Waters, who at first is excited about getting a new high-profile murder case but her excitement is soon dampened when she learns this isn't the first of Maureen Thompson's husbands to be hacked to death with an ice pick!

In the Company of Liars is that rare animal - a truly original thriller, strikingly fresh and unpredictable. Told chronologically in reverse, from its enigmatic end to its brilliant beginning, it's centered around a woman on trial for murder - Allison Pagone, who is caught between competing forces, each represented by someone who may not care if the pressure kills her in the end.

Courting Death finds Melanie Wilkerson (from Cotton, book two of the Clarkeston Chronicles) and Arthur Hughes working uncomfortably together in the chambers of a famous federal judge. While Melanie neglects her duties as a law clerk to investigate the mysterious death of a young woman in the courthouse five years earlier, Arthur wades through the horrific habeas corpus appeals of two prisoners: an infamous serial killer and a pathetic child murderer.

Ry Slaight was a rebellious cadet who almost destroyed West Point when he exposed and solved the murder of a gay cadet in 1969. Now, nearly three decades later, Slaight's been promoted to Lieutenant General and appointed Superintendent of the Military Academy. When a female cadet dies during parade, an autopsy establishes that she had sex with multiple partners the night before. Was she the victim of a gang rape? Was there a cadet orgy? Don't ask. Don't tell.

Cooper Dixon should have it made, with a beautiful wife, Kelly, two great kids, and a thriving business, the Tower Agency. But for Cooper, things aren’t turning out how he expected. He and Kelly are caught in a never-ending cycle of arguments - Cooper can’t remember the last time they had sex. And Cooper’s troubled business partner, Gates Ballenger, is scheming to sell the Tower Agency out from under him. When a gang of criminals is hired by a mysterious client to kidnap Kelly and set up Cooper to take the fall, Cooper’s life goes completely off the rails.

Cal Claxton is determined to reinvent himself as a small-town lawyer in the aftermath of his wife's suicide. Once a hard-charging Los Angeles prosecutor, he nowlives in solitude in an old farmhouse overlooking Oregon's wine country. When a scruffy, tattooed kid shows up asking for help in solving a cold case - that of his mother's murder - Cal wants to say no. Times are tough, and he's no private eye, anyway. But the kid, who calls himself Picasso, has ridden a bicycle in the rain all the way from Portland, and something about his determination touches Cal.

He's a serial killer. A murderer of young women, all killed in brutal attacks. But despite Hamish Wolfe's conviction, he's always stuck to his story - he's innocent, and he's been wrongly imprisoned. And now he wants someone to investigate and, more importantly, to write his story. Maggie Rose is a notorious defense attorney and writer whose specialty is getting convictions overturned. At first Maggie is reluctant to even acknowledge Hamish's requests to meet, ignoring his letters. But this is a very charismatic and persuasive man, good looking and intelligent.

Trial lawyer Eddie Terrell's professional life is prospering. His personal life is a dumpster fire. Usually racing to the prize fight, Eddie comes to the realization that he needs to beat a hasty retreat from the enticing flames and recalibrate on his own impulsive and subjective terms. Wishing to expand his professional interests by accomplishing something on the darker side, Eddie decides to head an investment scheme with a promising payoff. Of course, there are risks that must be navigated, risks that might require dangerously effective actions.

Common Pleas: A Tale of Whoa! is a legal thriller dripping in humor set in rural North Carolina in the mid-1980s. If John Grisham, Harper Lee, and Larry the Cable Guy were penned for a weekend in a cabin with nothing but a typewriter and an ample supply of bourbon, wine, and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, something like this might result. Listen as the Good, the Bad, and the Butt Ugly collide in this riotous journey to a rural North Carolina courtroom ending in a verdict of local justice.

A 15-year-old schoolboy is accused of the brutal murder of one of his teachers. His lawyers - the guarded veteran, Judith, and the energetic young solicitor, Constance - begin a desperate pursuit of the truth, revealing uncomfortable secrets about the teacher and the school. But Judith has her own secrets which she risks exposing when it is announced that a new lie-detecting device, nicknamed Pinocchio, will be used during the trial. And is the accused, a troubled boy who loves challenges, trying to help them or not?

Innocent people are dying. Mark Solier is a devoutly religious man, and he is arrested for killing them with just his mind. Mary Morgan is a young, ambitious, soon-to-be lawyer who makes a case for him to be tried for murder. An equally ambitious secret group, born at Yale and solidified through the Skull and Bones, conclude the facts to be true.

Everyone needs to be heard: If there’s one thing Sam Williams has learned, it’s that. Which is why he finds himself defending Richard Fothergill against accusations that date back decades. But Sam’s real problems are closer to home. His nemesis, Trawden, is finally dead, but so are those he once called friends. The people he used to count on, the ones who aren’t in the ground, aren’t what they once were, either.

From the day her five-year-old was abducted, Abigail Fisher vowed never to stop looking until her daughter was safely back home. But despite multiple searches, 23 years have passed without a trace of Becky Ann. When Abigail learns that death row inmate Megan Winnaker is the same age as her daughter, she begins to wonder if the kidnapper had Becky Ann’s face surgically altered to prevent identification.