Legal Fiction Thrillers

Dismas Hardy knows something is amiss with his trusted secretary, Phyllis. She’s been behaving out of character and disappearing without notice. Dismas becomes even more concerned when he discovers Phyllis has been reluctantly playing host to her convict brother, a man just released from San Quentin after serving a 25-year sentence for armed robbery and attempted murder. Things take a shocking turn with Phyllis is suddenly arrested at work, accused of being an accessory to the murder of Hector Valdez, a coyote who’d been smuggling women into the country from El Salvador and Mexico.

War hero General Randall Andrews has been nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court and George Carson leads the fight to defeat him. Before the final Senate vote on his nomination, Andrews is found shot to death in his Tampa home and George is arrested for murder. Judge Willa Carson believes with all her heart that her husband is the victim of twisted justice, but why won't he defend himself?

Melanie grew up with the constant upheaval of foster care. Now that she's survived into adulthood - with a loving husband, a steady job, and a baby boy named Alex - she thought that turmoil was behind her. Until one Tuesday evening when she discovers Alex has been removed by Social Services. And no one will say why. It's a terrifying scenario for any parent, but doubly so for Melanie, who knows the unintended horrors of what everyone coldly calls "the system".

Mark Darrow grew up in a small Ohio town with no real advantages beyond his intelligence and athletic ability. But thanks to the intervention of Lionel Farr—a professor at Caldwell, the local college—Darrow became an excellent student and, later, a superb trial lawyer. Now Farr asks his still-youthful protégé for a life-altering favor. An embezzlement scandal has threatened Caldwell's very existence—would Darrow consider becoming its new president? Darrow accepts, but returning to his alma mater opens old wounds.

When attorney Ben Kincaid came to Washington, D.C., to defend a senator caught in a murder case, he never dreamed he'd end up a senator himself. After his client stepped down, Ben was appointed to complete his term. Now he must advise a Supreme Court nominee during his confirmation. The judge looks like a shoo-in, until he outs himself on national TV. Ben calls a press conference for the now controversial candidate. And then, on live TV, a brutally murdered woman is discovered in the judge's backyard.

Texas attorney and former Texas Ranger Billy Bob Holland has many secrets. Among them is Vernon Smother's son, Lucas, a now-teenaged boy about whom few know the truth - Lucas is really Billy Bob's illegitimate son. When Lucas is arrested for murder, Billy Bob must confront the past and serve as the boy's criminal attorney. Billy Bob knows the propensity of the town, Deaf Smith, Texas, to make scapegoats out of the innocent and to exploit and sexually use the powerless.

When a young reporter is found dead and a prominent Philadelphia businessman is accused of her murder, Mick McFarland finds himself involved in the case of his life. The defendant, David Hanson, is Mick's best friend, and the victim, a TV news reporter, had reached out to Mick for legal help only hours before her death. Mick's played both sides of Philadelphia's courtrooms. As a top-shelf defense attorney and former prosecutor, he knows all the tricks of the trade. And he'll need every one of them to win.

When the daughter of a billionaire Hollywood director is found murdered after a kidnapping gone wrong, Los Angeles Special Trials prosecutor Rachel Knight and Detective Bailey Keller find themselves at the epicenter of a combustible and high-profile court case. Then a prime suspect is revealed to be one of Hollywood's most popular and powerful talent managers - and best friend to the victim's father. With the director vouching for the manager's innocence, the Hollywood media machine commences an all-out war designed to discredit both Rachel and her case.

When Charlie Blair left Chicago behind—and her old life as Lauren Claybourne—for a gig in the Santa Cruz DA's office, things were supposed to be easier. Or at least nothing that a couple of Xanax and a tumbler of vodka couldn't handle. The plan had been working, until the murder of a local bail bondsman Shelly Hansen. Enter: hotshot prosecutor Erika Lorman, she of the stellar record and unfailing touch with juries, a veritable legend in her own right.

Corporate litigator Mia Shaw suffers the shock of her life when she finds her colleague and friend brutally murdered. Grief-stricken and furious, Mia vows that she will do anything to seek justice and make the killer pay. The man accused of the murder is a friend of security tech guru Noah Ramirez, but the evidence just doesn't add up. To save his former ATF partner, Noah needs to convince Mia that the real killer is still on the loose. Mia soon has more than the criminal prosecution to worry about, however.

Trey Steam believes his mother was wrongfully convicted of murdering his father in 1972. When no-nonsense Federal Judge Willa Carson is presented with the true facts, she's convinced Billie Jo Steam is innocent. Determined to right the wrongs of a justice system that is too often about the system and too seldom about justice, Willa pulls out all the stops, including the use of genetic testing and her most distinguished political connections, to give Bille Jo back her family and her freedom.

Deputy District Attorney Samantha Kincaid is back at work after an attempt on her life and a promotion into the Major Crimes Unit. When the husband of a Portland city judge reports his wife missing, Samantha is assigned the case. She assumes her only job is to make the district attorney look good until the judge turns up. When the police discover evidence of foul play, Samantha finds herself unearthing secrets that were meant to stay hidden.

Kerry McGrath had only begun to work in the county prosecutor's office at the time of the infamous "Sweetheart Murder Case" - the bizarre slaying years ago of strikingly beautiful Suzanne Reardon. Now, 10 years later, Kerry has gained a reputation as a smart and relentless prosecutor - so much so that her name has been given to the governor as a candidate for a new judgeship - and her new life and career are in full swing.

Trust no one. Sam Callahan learned this lesson from a childhood spent in abusive foster care, on the streets, and locked in juvie. With the past behind him and his future staked on law school, he is moonlighting as a political tracker, paid to hide in crowds and shadow candidates, recording their missteps for use by their opponents. One night, after an anonymous text tip, Sam witnesses a congressional candidate and a mysterious blonde in a motel indiscretion that ends in murder, recording it all on his phone. Now Sam is a target.

Judge Scott Sampson doesn’t brag about having a perfect life, but the evidence is clear: A prestigious job. A loving marriage. A pair of healthy children. Then a phone call begins every parent’s most chilling nightmare. Scott’s six-year-old twins, Sam and Emma, have been taken. The judge must rule exactly as instructed in a drug case he is about to hear. If he refuses, the consequences for the children will be dire.

When San Francisco attorney Dismas Hardy gets a call saying his wife never picked the kids up from school, he's worried. Frannie's a great mother. Turns out there's a good explanation: She's in jail. Unbeknownst to her husband, Frannie has just appeared before a grand jury - and refused to share a crucial piece of information about her friend Ron, who's accused of killing his wife.

When a diplomatic delegation from Bhashyistan is blown sky-high on Bronson Avenue, the shares of a Calgary-based oil company promptly drop like a stone. In no time at all, Arthur Beauchamp is tangled up with wily civil servants, gung-ho cabinet members, recently released eco-terrorists, and possibly the most incompetent spy since Mata Hari.

The blonde wandering nude at the Remuda Gold Club tells Perry Mason a strange story. She says that while she peacefully sun-bathed near the course, someone made off with her Cadillac, her trailer, and all of her belongings - including her precious diary. The woman blames the police who suspect her of having stashed away nearly half a million dollars allegedly stolen by her father, who is now in prison. She swears that both she and her father are innocent. So who is bankrolling her leisurely lifestyle?

A young woman is haunted by two murders that are closely linked -- despite the 110 years that separate them.

Following the breakup of her marriage and her pursuit by an obsessed stalker, criminal defense attorney Emily Graham accepts an offer to work in a major Manhattan law firm. Feeling a need for roots, she buys her ancestral home in New Jersey, which her family sold in 1892, after the disappearance of young Madeline Shapley, one of Emily's forebears.

Though some think they saw a ghost, it was a real, live woman in the (mostly exposed) flesh flitting through Sierra Vista Park. Eleanor Corbin has a taste for trouble - and a talent for getting out of it using the most outrageous means to cover her tracks. Now her scandalized half-sister, Olga, fears Eleanor may be using lascivious antics to camouflage more larcenous acts.