Legal English

When Laura Coates joined the Department of Justice as a prosecutor, she wanted to advocate for the most vulnerable among us. But she quickly realized that even with the best intentions, “the pursuit of justice creates injustice.”

With money and hope in short supply, newly minted attorney Brigham Theodore decides it’s time to lower his standards. He joins a seedy fly-by-night firm in Salt Lake City out of desperation. After he loses his first case - a speeding ticket - he’s convinced his career is over. But to his shock, his boss hands him a slightly more complex case: capital murder.

In The End of Power, award-winning columnist and former Foreign Policy editor Moisés Naím illuminates the struggle between once-dominant megaplayers and the new micropowers challenging them in every field of human endeavor. Drawing on provocative, original research and a lifetime of experience in global affairs, Naím explains how the end of power is reconfiguring our world.

A Turkish diplomat in New York City is gunned down in broad daylight, and all signs point to an ancient blood feud. The suspected gunman is Armenian. His alleged motive is to avenge the slaughter of Armenians by Turks generations before. But prosecutor Butch Karp has never accepted the easy answer, and he soon realizes the facts of this murder are more complicated than they seem. To close the case, Karp and his investigator wife, Marlene, must infiltrate a cross-section of New York society, while fending off crooks and madmen from every corner of the Big Apple and the world beyond.

Charlie Webb is a third rate lawyer who graduated from a third rate law-school and, because he couldn’t get hired by any of the major law firms, has opened his own law firm, where he gets by handling cases for dubious associates from his youth and some court appointed cases. Described as “a leaky boat floating down the stream of life,” Charlie has led unremarkable life, personally and professionally. Until he’s appointed to be the attorney for a decidedly crackpot artist who calls himself Guido Sabatini (born Lawrence Weiss).

An old house, a new lover, a fresh life for Dominick - or will the faith-driven doom it all? The past just won't go away. Dominick likes to idle there in history's comfortable remove, but when his mother dies and he meets the half sister he never knew he had, the past becomes more personal - and the present more dangerous. Dominick's perpetual peregrinations are interrupted by a visit to his newfound sibling's historic Hudson Valley estate, which is also home to a Wiccan coven.

Two years ago, Darren Street made a name for himself as the man who rooted out corruption in the district attorney's office. Now the hotheaded young lawyer is in the public eye yet again - this time, accused of murder. Jalen Jordan retained Street for what seemed to be a minor traffic violation, but when evidence turned up linking Jordan to the death of two boys, Street wanted out of the case.

Criminal defense attorney Tex Hunter has a target on his back. Defending an accused killer is never easy, but when a homeless teenager is charged with the murder of a retired Chicago Police Detective, the pressure builds to breaking point. Sidney McCann was no ordinary cop. He wasn't a captain, he wasn't a beat cop, and he wasn't an average desk jockey—he was one of the most corrupt, twisted, and ruthless cops the Chicago Police Department had ever produced. But that history, that long line of accusations, didn't matter to the current crop of police officers.

Former defense attorney Darren Street is desperately trying to put his life back together after spending two years in a maximum-security prison for a murder he didn’t commit. He’s rebuilding his law practice, reconnecting with his son, and falling more deeply in love with his girlfriend, fellow attorney Grace Alexander. But the past casts a long shadow, and for Street, there’s no outrunning it.

A corpse on an altar. A witness who isn't talking. An ancient vow of secrecy. It's two a.m. when County Prosecutor Peter Saul arrives at the scene of a grisly murder at St. Andrew's Church in Cleveland, Ohio. Reverend Howard Jamison is covered with the victim's blood, and there's a Satanic Bible on his desk. Attorney Hunter St. James has spent his career fighting the shameful specter of his father's legacy.

Widower Jack Harris has resisted the dating scene ever since the shooting of his wife Molly by a fifteen-year-old boy three years ago. An early morning run along the Hudson River changes that when he spots a woman in last night’s party dress, barefoot, enjoying a champagne picnic alone, reading his favorite novel. Everything about her reminds him of what he used to have with Molly. Eager to help Jack find love again, his best friend posts a message on a popular website after he mentions the encounter.

Allen Drury has penetrated the world's stormiest political battleground and the smoke-filled committee rooms of the United States Senate to reveal the bitter conflicts set in motion when the president calls upon the Senate to confirm his controversial choice for secretary of state. This novel is a true epic, showing in fascinating detail the minds and motives of the statesmen, the opportunists, the idealists. Advise and Consent is a timeless story with clear echoes of today's headlines.

Wealthy businessman Hartley Bassett has killed himself. There's a typewritten suicide note and three guns lying near his body. But for Perry Mason, that's evidence overkill. He knows there has been trouble in Bassett's life. His wife wants out, his stepson hates him, an embezzler can't pay him back - and there's the man with a glass eye who hired Perry Mason even before his glass eye went missing and was found in the hands of the deceased.

Ed Eagle, the six-feet-six, take-no-prisoners Santa Fe attorney, has recovered from his encounters with Mexican organized crime and - more treacherously - his ex-wife, Barbara. Now a mysterious new client has come his way, one who may shed light into some dark corners of Ed's past...and put him in danger once more.

Mary DiNunzio is a trademark Lisa Scottoline heroine - she's strong, she's smart, and she's got plenty of attitude. In recent years, she's become a big-time business-getter at Rosato & Associates, but the last person she expects to walk into her office one morning - in mile-high stilettos - is super sexy Trish Gambone, her high school rival.

After an impressive performance in front of a full house, local college basketball stand-out Davonte Blair celebrates the victory with a few friends. But when a fierce argument over drugs ensues, the evening takes a violent turn — and one member of the group goes missing. When police discover the body of the basketball team manager, the town turns into a tinderbox of emotions. The media is calling it a hate crime. The college president is desperate to avoid a scandal. And the police department is under intense pressure to solve the horrific case.

When a horrifying attack leaves one of the four members of the Women's Murder Club struggling for her life, the others fight to keep a madman behind bars before anyone else is hurt. And Lindsay Boxer and her new partner in the San Francisco police department run flat-out to stop a series of kidnappings that has electrified the city: children are being plucked off the streets together with their nannies - but the kidnappers aren't demanding ransom.

Attorney Ken McClain has nothing to live for. Nine years after the accident that claimed the life of his wife and two sons, he's finally given up. Alone in his empty house, it seems suicide is his only escape. Now the question of death by pills or by bullet? Then suddenly the phone rings, and it turns out to be a case he can't refuse. A case for the life of accused killer Peter Thomason, and a case for his own soul.

Linebacker-turned-lawyer Jake Lassiter heads to Havana and untangles a deadly plot involving the CIA, Fidel Castro, and the Russian government.

A movie director is charged with murdering an actress during sex, and then staging her death to make it look like a suicide. In a seemingly unrelated case, a loner is murdered, leaving the sheriff's department with no clues. One unsettling revelation after another leaves a retired FBI agent and an L.A. detective thinking they've unmasked a most frightening killer with almost inconceivable calculation. Also available uabridged.