Legal Fiction

Law professor Thomas Jackson McMurtrie literally wrote the book on evidence in the state of Alabama. But when a power-hungry colleague uses a recent run-in between McMurtrie and headstrong student Rick Drake to end his career, he is left unsure what to do next.

Samantha Brinkman, an ambitious, hard-charging Los Angeles criminal defense attorney, is struggling to make a name for herself and to drag her fledgling practice into the big leagues. Sam lands a high-profile double-murder case in which one of the victims is a beloved TV star - and the defendant is a decorated veteran LAPD detective. It promises to be exactly the kind of media sensation that would establish her as a heavy hitter in the world of criminal law.

Paul Madriani and Harry Hinds have a new client: Emma Brauer, a woman accused in the "mercy killing" of her aged father, Robert Brauer. Insisting she's innocent, Emma tells Paul about a package sent to her father shortly before he entered the hospital. Bequeathed to him by a member of his unit from World War II, the box contains a key and a slip of paper. Emma fears that this package is connected to her father's death.

Abby Endicott, the chief of the District Attorney's homicide unit in Boston, returns in the heart-racing follow-up to Mission Hill. Things are looking good for Abby: she's top pick to be the next District Attorney, and her musician boyfriend Ty has moved in, despite her upper crust family's objections. But a serial killer is on the loose, and with two college-aged girls dead and another missing, time is running out.

When Dr. John Meacham goes on a shooting spree the office, his business partner, staff, and two patients are killed in the bloodbath. Then Meacham turns the gun on himself. The blame falls on Dr. Lou Welcome. Welcome worked with Meacham years before as a counselor after John's medical license had been revoked for drug addiction. Lou knew that John was an excellent doctor and deserved to be practicing medicine and fought hard for his license to be restored.

Identical, based loosely on the myth of Castor and Pollux, is the story of identical twins, Paul and Cass Giannis, and the complex relationships between their family and their former neighbors, the Kronons. The audiobook focuses principally on events in 2008, when Paul is a candidate for Mayor of Kindle County, and Cass is released from the penitentiary, 25 years after pleading guilty to the murder of his girlfriend, Athena Kronon.

When a brilliant billionaire is diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer, he realizes that all his considerable wealth cannot prepare him to meet his Maker. But he has an idea that might: he will stage the ultimate reality show. With his true agenda hidden, he auditions followers from all the world's major religions, inviting them to the trial of their lives on a remote island, where they must defend their beliefs against spiritual challenges. Oliver Finney, a feisty old judge with his own secrets, is chosen to defend Christianity. As the program takes a strange twist, he realizes he is trapped in a game of deadly agendas that may cost him his life.

A young man with Down's syndrome has been convicted of burning down his care home and killing five people, but a fellow inmate at his secure psychiatric unit has hired Thora to prove Jakob is innocent. If he didn't do it, who did? And how is the multiple murder connected to the death of Magga, killed in a hit and run on her way to babysit?

In San Francisco's seamy Tenderloin district, a teenage street hustler has been murdered in a shelter for boys. And the dedicated priest who runs the struggling home stands accused. But despite damning evidence that he's a killer—and worse—Father Thomas Martin stands by his innocence. And attorney Peter Donley stands with him.

While home on break, a 17-year-old Senate page takes her dog out for a walk and never returns. The resulting media firestorm quickly ensnares television reporter Cassidy Shaw, Federal Prosecutor Allison Pierce, and FBI Special Agent Nicole Hedges. Together, these life-long friends call themselves The Triple Threat - a nickname derived from their favorite dessert as well as their uncanny ability to crack cases from their three unique positions of power. Together, they must find the one face of betrayal amidst a crowd of growing suspects before they become the next victims.

The first victim is Dylan Vogler, a charming ex-convict who manages the Bay Beans West coffee shop in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district. When his body is found, inspectors discover that his knapsack is filled with high-grade marijuana. It soon becomes clear that San Francisco's A-list flocked to Bay Beans West not only for their caffeine fix. But how much did Maya Townshend - the beautiful socialite niece of the city's mayor, and the absentee owner of the shop - know about what was going on inside her business?

JAG lawyer Sean Drummond has gotten himself in way over his head - with a case that challenges his deepest fears and a co-counselor who challenges just about everything else. Assigned to South Korea as an advocate for a gay officer accused of brutally killing the son of a South Korean war hero, Drummond is teamed up with an old law-school nemesis. Katherine Carson is a curvy, liberal, William Kunstler-like attorney with a reputation for manipulating the media on behalf of her mostly gay clients.

New to the job and with everything to prove, Crown Prosecution Service lawyer Eve Wren is working on the biggest UK trial in decades. Notorious cult leader Patrick Nye and his followers, known as The Seven, are pleading not guilty to detonating a bomb in a London theatre. Patrick might be charming on the stand, but Eve knows that the evidence never lies. The trial has already started when Eve discovers a piece of evidence that calls the whole case into question.

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.

On takeoff from Denver during a winter blizzard, an airliner piloted by veteran Captain Marty Mitchell overruns a commuter plane from behind. Bizarrely, the fuselage of the smaller aircraft is tenuously wedged onto the wing of his Boeing 757, leading Mitchell to an impossible life-or-death choice. Mitchell’s decision will land the former military pilot in the crosshairs of a viciously ambitious district attorney determined to send him to prison for doing his job.

"I was sitting at the end of the bar sipping single-malt Scotch when I spotted the tall blond woman with the large green eyes and the small gray gun."

The next thing Jake Lassiter knows, the woman pumps three bullets into the man on the next barstool. Lassiter, the linebacker-turned-lawyer, has a new client. She's a stunning South Beach model; the dead man is her wealthy father; and the murder case is a slam dunk for the prosecution. Or is it?

"Lassiter is smart, tough, funny, and very human...one of the most entertaining series characters in contemporary crime fiction." - Booklist

Sometimes the easiest cases are the hardest. The defendant absolutely, positively murdered her own mother. She is also absolutely, positively mentally ill. Homicide prosecutor David Brunelle is tasked with holding her responsible despite the best efforts of her defense team, which includes a psychologist who's convinced that she's innocent. As the case proceeds, the pressures mount, and Brunelle begins to question his own sanity. Will Brunelle crack the case, or will the case crack him?

A man is murdered in Seattle's Pioneer Square. The killer is caught just blocks away, blood still on his hands. When it's discovered that both killer and victim belong to the same Native American tribe, the tribe asserts jurisdiction, and homicide DA Dave Brunelle has to prosecute the case in their tribal court. It's bad enough when the defense attorney claims the killing was justified under the ancient custom of "blood revenge". It gets worse when blood revenge turns into a blood feud.

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.

Brash, brilliant, handsome Nicholas Deketomis has built a highly successful career as a lawyer, protecting the rights of the innocent while winning multibillion-dollar lawsuits from the powers that be. "Deke" may have come from the wrong side of the tracks, but he's built a wonderful life for his close-knit family. His wife and two children live in a beautiful house in a seaside community along the Florida Panhandle. But their comfortable life is endangered.