Legal Fiction Thrillers

A cold-blooded kidnapper has been playing a twisted game with a terrified Minnesota town. Now a respected member of the community stands accused of a chilling act of evil. But when a second boy disappears, a frightened public demands to know: Have the police caught the wrong man? Is the nightmare continuing...or just beginning?

Jack Turner has returned to his hometown of Denton, Florida, to live there for the first time in 18 years. Despite a career as a criminal defense attorney and the companionship of his new dog, Brinkley, Jack is haunted by what is missing in his life. Whether it’s the unanswered questions about his brother, Rick, who never returned from Vietnam, or a budding romance with Jenny Walton, Jack is wary of getting close to anyone beyond a few trusted friends and his beloved dogs.

Lou Welcome, from Palmer's bestselling Oath of Office, is back in this heart stopping medical thriller. A desperate phone call embroils Lou in scandal and murder involving Dr. Gary McHugh, known around the Capital as the "society doc." Lou has been supervising McHugh, formerly a black-out drinker, through his work with the Physician Wellness Office. McHugh has been very cavalier about his recovery, barely attending AA and refusing a sponsor. But Lou sees progress, and the two men are becoming friends.

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?

Perched on the soft tar of a New York City rooftop, a mysterious sniper fires a single round from a .50 caliber rifle. Five stories below, his target collapses on the marble steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, dead. Crime reporter Jane Cole needs this story badly. Suspended NYPD cop Robert Warren is desperate to clear his name. They don't trust each other, but they make the perfect team. And as Cole and Warren track the killer, they uncover a plot so ruthless it shocks the conscience, a crime so expansive it will rock the world.

On the evening before Thanksgiving, Hal Chase, a guard in the San Francisco County Jail, drives to the airport to pick up his step-brother for the weekend. When they return, Hal’s wife, Katie, has disappeared without a clue. By the time Dismas Hardy hears about this, Katie has been missing for five days. The case strikes close to home because Katie had been seeing Hardy’s wife, a marriage counselor. By this time, the original Missing Persons case has become a suspected homicide, and Hal is the prime suspect.

As the fixer for Congressman John Mahoney in Washington, DC, Joe DeMarco has had to bend and break the law more than a few times. But when Representative Lyle Canton, House Majority Whip, is found shot dead in his office in the US Capitol and DeMarco is arrested for the murder, DeMarco knows he's been framed. Locked up in the Alexandria Jail awaiting trial, he calls on his enigmatic friend Emma, an ex-DIA agent, to search for the true killer.

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.

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.

Kamran Hadid feels invincible. He attends Hampton school, an elite all-boys boarding school in London, he comes from a wealthy family and he has a place at Oxford next year. The world is at his feet. And then a night of revelry leads to a drunken encounter, and he must ask himself a horrific question. With the help of assault counsellor Zara Kaleel, Kamran reports the incident in the hopes that will be the end of it. But it’s only the beginning....

Izzy McNeil is hot on the trail of one of Chicago's most notorious gangsters. Not that he realizes the crimson-tressed enchantress, a self-proclaimed "lapsed lawyer", is moonlighting as a private investigator. But when an unexpected run-in trashes Izzy's cover, she's swept into an evil underworld where she is definitely not safe.

When a local criminal defense attorney turns up dead, Sheriff Billie Gray arrives on the scene. At first glance, the lawyer’s death looks like suicide. But Billie knows better: this was murder. To assist with the investigation, Billie calls on her old friend Solomon Shepard, who isn’t so eager to accept. After a traumatic attack left him mentally in shambles, Solomon is on indefinite leave from the county attorney’s office. But Billie needs him. And he can’t say no to Billie.

Bum Rap is the novel that brings Lassiter together with squabbling Miami lawyers Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord. In a tale filled with startling twists, Lassiter digs deep into the underbelly of glitzy South Beach to defend a client who's not telling him the truth.

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.

A year ago, fresh out of Harvard Law School, Mike Ford landed his dream job at the Davies Group, Washington's most powerful consulting firm. Now, he's staring down the barrel of a gun, pursued by two of the world's most dangerous men. To get out, he'll have to do all the things he thought he'd never do again: lie, cheat, steal - and this time, maybe even kill. Mike grew up in a world of small-stakes con men, learning lessons at his father's knee. His hard-won success in college and law school was his ticket out.

In southeast London, a young mother has been accused of an unthinkable crime: poisoning her own child - and then leaving him to die. The mother, Ellie, is secretive and challenging - she's had a troubled upbringing - but does that mean she's capable of murder? Balancing the case with raising her disabled five-year-old son, criminal defence lawyer Sarah Kellerman sets out in desperate pursuit of the truth. But when her own child becomes unwell, Sarah realises she's been drawn into a dangerous game.

As changes in Wyoming banking law bring an influx of crypto entrepreneurs to small-town Custer, attorney Sam Johnstone doesn’t think much of the new arrivals. But when a shocking crime throws him straight into the epicenter of the digital world, there’s no turning back. The death of crypto exchange magnate Max Kovalenko shatters the community, sparking local outrage and a long list of suspects. With many betrayed partners, jealous competitors, and bitter family members left in his wake, Max has stepped on plenty of toes since his arrival, and finding his killer is no easy task.

After the New York grand jury indicts the national presidential campaign chairman and the NSA spymaster for the murder of the CIA chief, Karp engages in an unforgettable courtroom confrontation with the defendants who have the full weight of the US administration, a hostile judge, and a compliant media supporting them. These sinister forces will stop at nothing to prevent Karp from bringing out the truth, even if they have to resort to murder.

In the sixth volume of the best-selling Joe Dillard series, Dillard does something he has never done before - he hires a young associate. Her name is Charleston Story, she is bright and beautiful, and in her very first case, she winds up inheriting an item so valuable that it threatens to destroy her and everything she cares about. As Dillard tries to help and advise his young protégé, he finds himself dragged into a web of danger and intrigue, a web so thick that he may never be able to extract himself.

Horace Rumpole - cigar-smoking, claret-drinking, Wordsworth-spouting defender of some unlikely clients - often speaks of the great murder trial which revealed his talents as an advocate and made his reputation down at the Bailey when he was still a young man. Now, for the first time, the sensational story of the Penge Bungalow Murders case is told in full: how, shortly after the war, Rumpole took on the seemingly impossible task of defending young Simon Jerold.