Legal Mystery Suspense

Attorney Deborah Knott is North Carolina's answer to V.I. Warshawski, a legal sleuth with a knack for sniffing out the most baffling crimes. Deborah has just done the unthinkable: entered the heated race for judge of old-boy-ruled Colleton County. The only female candidate, she's busy reeling in voters and giving campaign speeches. There couldn't be a worse time for Gayle Whitehead to beg Deborah to investigate the 18-year-old unsolved murder of Gayle's mother, Janie.

The office of the public defender is not known as a training ground for bright young litigators. Clay Carter has been there too long and, like most of his colleagues, dreams of a better job in a real firm. When he reluctantly takes the case of a young man charged with a random street killing, he assumes it is just another of the many senseless murders that hit DC every week. As he digs into the background of his client, Clay stumbles on a conspiracy too horrible to believe.

The incomparable master of the legal thriller takes us deeper into the labyrinth that is the American justice system, always drawing us in with an irresistible hook, pulling the thread of tension tighter and tighter, and then knocking us out with a conclusion that's never "by the book". Maybe that's why, after more than 20 years of consecutive number-one New York Times best sellers, a new novel by America's favorite storyteller is still a major publishing event.

Sebastian Rudd, rogue lawyer, defends people other lawyers won't go near. It's controversial and dangerous work, which is why Sebastian needs his bodyguard/assistant/sidekick: Partner. So if Sebastian is just about the most unpopular lawyer in town, why is Partner so loyal to him? How did they meet? And what's the real story of this man of few words who's as good with a gun as he is with the law? The surprising answers are all in PARTNERS, John Grisham's first exclusively digital short story.

An innocent man is about to be executed. Only a guilty man can save him. Travis Boyette is such a man. In 1998, in the small East Texas city of Sloan, he abducted, raped, and strangled a popular high-school cheerleader. He buried her body so that it would never be found, then watched in amazement as police and prosecutors arrested and convicted Donté Drumm, a local football star, and marched him off to death row.

Andy Barber's job is to put killers behind bars. So when a boy from his son Jacob's school is found stabbed to death, Andy is doubly determined to find and prosecute the perpetrator. Until a crucial piece of evidence turns up linking Jacob to the murder.

Morgan Cooper has always found it difficult to balance her home life - mother of two young children and wife of a workaholic civil rights lawyer - with her work life as an undercover CIA officer. When Morgan gets stressed, anxious, or scared, whether at home or in the field, she tends to talk to herself until she can clear her head. This habit, though, puts her life in danger during an assignment in the strife-torn Gaza Strip.

Modern-day Georgia. The state Supreme Court celebrates the opening of its new courthouse, but the chief justice - shot dead in his chambers - is late to the party. Enter ex-lawyer Chance Meridian. Pressed into service by an offer he cannot refuse, Chance launches the search for the bold killer. But dirty politics is part of Atlanta’s DNA. The town is full of secrets - secrets too damning to see the light of sunshine. And if Chance cannot crack the case and fast, the next murder on the court’s docket could be his own.

Barbara Holloway is a trial lawyer who tends to take on difficult cases, but this time it seems there's no defense at all. It appears that Vinny Jessup died when his car rolled over on a bad curve on Lookout Mountain. Then the sheriff finds the gunshot wound. With a large insurance policy as her motive, could his much younger wife have staged the death?

Attorney Harper Ross is at the end of her rope. Her former client, John Robinson, who she walked on a technicality, went on to kill again. John's second victim was a young, vibrant mother of two. After suffering with the devastating guilt about the evil that she unleashed back onto the street, Harper retreats to her old haunt, a bar called Charlie Hooper's, as she confronts her old demons. Before she has a chance to completely drown her sorrows, Harper is called to defend Heather Morrison, a transgendered youth who is accused of killing her mother in cold blood.

As the Avenger of Blood systematically executes guilty rapists and the lawyers who finagled their freedom, a reporter has visions of this relentless vigilante in action. To her amazement, she soon finds herself in the slammer, accused of being the notorious serial killer. Deep in despair, she retains an attorney who specializes in the insanity plea.

For the members of SEAL Team Six, it was a rare mission ordered by the president, monitored in real time from the Situation Room. Houthi rebels in Yemen had captured an American journalist and a member of the Saudi royal family. Their executions were scheduled for Easter Sunday. The SEAL team were to break them out. But when the mission results in spectacular failure, the finger-pointing goes all the way to the top. Paige Chambers, a determined young lawyer, has a very personal reason for wanting to know the answer.

A gripping, poignant, and masterful courtroom novel, The Best Defense is a major work from one of America's most popular writers.

Lila Nash is on the verge of landing her dream job - working as a prosecutor under the Hennepin County Attorney - and has settled into a happy life with her boyfriend, Joe Talbert. But when a woman is pulled from the Mississippi River, barely alive, things in the office take a personal turn. The police believe the woman’s assailant is local photographer Gavin Spenser, but the case quickly flounders as the evidence wears thin. It seems Gavin saw this investigation coming - and no one can imagine how carefully he has prepared.

Seattle, 1933. The city is in the grips of the Great Depression, Prohibition, and vice. Cutting his teeth on a small-time beat, hungry and ambitious young reporter William “Shoe” Shumacher gets a tip that could change his career. There’s been a murder at a social club on Profanity Hill—an underworld magnet for vice crimes only a privileged few can afford. The story is going to be front-page news, and Shoe is the first reporter on the scene.

In picture-perfect Erva, Alabama, the most serious crimes are misdemeanors. Speeding tickets. Shoplifting. Contempt of court. Then why is the jail so crowded? And why are so few prisoners released? There’s only one place to learn the truth behind these incriminating secrets.

In Biloxi, Mississippi, a landmark tobacco trial with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake begins routinely, then swerves mysteriously off course. The jury is behaving strangely, and at least one juror is convinced he's being watched...

Things are finally looking up for defense attorney Mickey Haller. After two years of wrong turns, Haller is back in the courtroom. When Hollywood lawyer Jerry Vincent is murdered, Haller inherits his biggest case yet: the defense of Walter Elliott, a prominent studio executive accused of murdering his wife and her lover. But as Haller prepares for the case that could launch him into the big time, he learns that Vincent's killer may be coming for him next.

Paul Copeland, a New Jersey county prosecutor, is still grieving the loss of his sister twenty years ago - the night she walked into the woods, never to be seen again. But now, a homicide victim is found with evidence linking him to the disappearance. The victim could be the boy who vanished along with Paul's sister. And, as hope rises that his sister could still be alive, dangerous secrets from his family's past threaten to tear apart everything Paul has been trying to hold together....

When one of South Carolina's most powerful lawyers is charged with the murder of his wife, criminal defense attorney Joe Hennessy agrees to be part of the defense team. As Hennessy builds a legal defense, he's thrown into a world of danger and corruption, cruelty and violence. Despite his full caseload, Hennessy agrees to defend a folk singer charged with drug trafficking. As he prepares for the trial, Hennessy digs into a world of lies, manipulation, and exploitation.