Legal Fiction

It’s time to take your place on the jury. The victim: A 16-year-old girl with facial deformities, neglected by an alcoholic mother, who accuses the boys of something unthinkable. The defendants: Four handsome teenage boys from hardworking immigrant families. All with corroborating stories. Whose side would you take?

Having spent her life watching her father run his East London firm, Zara Ezra has learnt a thing or two about being a gangster, and she’s ready to take over when the time comes. Mike Regan, a blast from Zara’s past, is the head of his own firm, but when his son is kidnapped in the middle of a gangland feud, Mike has no choice but to accept help from the Ezras to get his little boy back alive. With a rival firm playing increasingly dirty, murder moves to the top of the agenda and Zara has some big choices to make.

In the twelfth installment of New York Times best-selling author Sheldon Siegel’s iconic San Francisco series, ex-spouses and public defenders Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez defend Jaylen Jenkins in a high-profile case where they race from the glamorous world of professional sports to the low-rent world of strip clubs and homeless encampments in a desperate search for an elusive truth where everybody has something to hide.

Against the backdrop of growing civil rights turmoil in a sultry border town, the hard-drinking ex-POW attorney Hackberry Holland yields to the myriad urgings of his wife, his brother, and his so-called friends to make a bid for a congressional seat - and finds himself embroiled in the seamy world of Texas powerbrokers.

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.

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.

Bennie Rosato, Mary DiNunzio, Judy Carrier, and Anne Murphy are back with all cylinders firing in Accused. Mary Dinuzio has just been promoted to partner and is about to take on her most unusual case yet, brought to the firm by a thirteen-year-old genius with a penchant for beekeeping. Allegra Gardner's sister Fiona was murdered six years ago, and it seemed like an open-and-shut case: the accused, Lonnie Stall, was seen fleeing the scene; his blood was on Fiona and her blood was on him; most damningly, Lonnie Stall pleaded guilty.

Lawyer Arthur Beauchamp is facing the most explosive trial of his career: the defence of seven boisterous environmentalists accused of sabotaging an Ontario plant that pumps out a pesticide that has led to the mass death of honeybees. The story zigzags between Toronto, where the trial takes place, and Arthur’s West Coast island home, where he finds himself arrested for fighting his own environmental cause: the threatened destruction of a popular park. The Toronto trial concludes with a tense, hang-by-the-fingernails jury verdict.

Has Rumpole hung up his wig for good? Can it be? Yes, the beloved barrister is now retired (though far from retiring) and gently ripening to a rosy hue in the Florida sunshine. But a colleague's casual request for advice on a difficult case sends him winging back across the Atlantic, and before he's through, our hero will come up against a fanatical religious cult and a mysterious letter written in blood.

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.

Sara Tate, a Manhattan assistant DA, is on the brink of losing her job. But then she takes a case that may be able to secure her future. Trouble is, it’s much more complicated—and deadly—than it initially appears. While forces within her own office plot against her, an outside threat takes things to another level: Win the case or her attorney husband, Jared, will die. But Jared has received threats, too. Forced to defend the opposition, he learns that, if loses the case, Sara will be killed. Caught in a struggle of emotions and shocking betrayals, both must face the unthinkable.

Defense Attorney Robin Lockwood is summoned by retired District Attorney Francis Melville to meet with him at Black Oaks, the manor he owns up in the Oregon mountains. The manor has an interesting history - originally built in 1628 in England, there's a murderous legend and curse attached to the mansion. Melville, however, wants Lockwood's help in a legal matter - righting a wrongful conviction from his days as a DA.

While growing up together in a Boston neighborhood, Timmy Flaherty and Donny Faye are as different as night and day. Timmy lives by the rules while Donny refuses to accept them. After the boys serve in Vietnam, Timmy earns a law degree, but Donny stays in the military—a decision that surprises everyone who knows him. After Donny violates the army’s rules, he receives a dishonorable discharge and afterwards begins to work for Percy Dwyer, a notorious Boston crime boss.

The McCarrans and the Gallaghers, two military families, have been close for decades, ever since Anthony McCarran—now one of the army's most distinguished generals—became best friends with Jack Gallagher, a fellow West Pointer who was later killed in Vietnam. Now a new generation of soldiers faces combat, and Lt. Brian McCarran, the general's son, has returned from a harrowing tour in Iraq. Traumatized by wartime experiences he will not reveal, Brian depends on his lifelong friendship with Kate Gallagher, Jack's daughter, who is married to Brian's commanding officer in Iraq.

When Dismas Hardy agrees to clean up the caseload of recently disappeared attorney Charlie Bowen, he thinks it will be easy. But one of the cases is far from small-time - the appeal to overturn the murder conviction of National Guard reservist Evan Scholler, who has been sentenced to life without parole for the murder of an ex-Navy SEAL and private contractor named Ron Nolan. Two rapid-fire events in Iraq conspired to bring the men into fatal conflict.

For seventeen years, small-town public defender Andy Hughes has been underpaid to look after the poor, the addicted, and the unfortunate souls who constantly cycle through the courts, charged with petty crimes. Then, in the summer of 2020, he’s assigned to a grotesque murder case that brings national media focus to rural Patrick County, Virginia—Alicia Benson, the wife of a wealthy businessman, is murdered in her home. The accused killer, Damian Bullins, is a cunning felon with a long history of violence, and he confesses to the police.

Determined to enjoy the pace of small-town life, lawyer Sam Johnstone has left his painful past behind and looks forward to taking each new day as it comes. Yet just as he sees peace and tranquility on the horizon, a close friend is charged with murder. Unable to stand quietly by, Sam quickly signs on for the defense. But how can he defend a client who has already confessed to the crime? Further complicating matters, an ethically challenged prosecutor with an ax to grind seems embarked on a personal crusade against Sam.

In these witty and comic stories, Horace Rumpole takes on a variety of clients and activities. He, of course, brings each case to a successful end, all the while quoting poetry and drinking claret.

“You learn early that you don’t get to prove your case with Boy Scouts and nuns. Yes, convicted felons will say anything to get out of jail, but they also know a lot.” Plea bargains may grease the rails of justice, but for Jamie Brock, prosecuting criminals is not about cutting deals.

When a building collapses on several firemen, one is unaccounted for - was he really buried, or did he take the opportunity to flee from the problems in his life?