Legal Mystery Suspense

An uncomfortable weekend awaits LA family lawyer Sandy Moss when she makes her way to her hometown in New Jersey for the wedding of her cousin Stephanie, sweetly nicknamed Skinny. Uncomfortable, because Sandy is not really looking forward to seeing her family, but at least her boyfriend, Hollywood movie star Patrick McNabb, is by her side.

Jack Tobin, a Florida trial lawyer, is dedicated to ending capital punishment one prisoner at a time. Jack is convinced that doomed convict Henry Wilson is innocent, but can he delay execution and get Henry a new trial in time?

Leigh Collier has worked hard to build what looks like a normal life. She has a good job as a defense attorney, a daughter doing well in school, and even her divorce is relatively civilized - her life is just as unremarkable as she’d always hoped it would be. But Leigh’s ordinary life masks a childhood that was far from average...a childhood tarnished by secrets, broken by betrayal, and finally torn apart by a devastating act of violence.

Psychiatrist Dr. Gwen Moore is an expert on killers. She’s spent a decade treating California’s most depraved predators and unlocking their motives - predators much like the notorious Bloody Heart serial killer, whose latest teenage victim escaped and then identified local high school teacher Randall Thompson as his captor. The case against Thompson as the Bloody Heart Killer is damning - and closed, as far as Gwen and the media are concerned. If not for one new development.

FBI agent Rachel Walling finally gets the call she's dreaded for years: the one that tells her the Poet has returned. Years ago she worked on the famous case, tracking down the serial killer who wove lines of poetry into his hideous crimes. Rachel has never forgotten Robert Backus, the killer who called himself the Poet, and apparently he has not forgotten her either.

The life of a 10-year-old black girl is shattered by two drunken and remorseless young men. The mostly white town reacts with shock and horror at the inhuman crime, until her father acquires an assault rifle and takes justice into his own outraged hands.

Clanton, Mississippi. 1990. Jake Brigance finds himself embroiled in a deeply divisive trial when the court appoints him attorney for Drew Gamble, a timid sixteen-year-old boy accused of murdering a local deputy. Many in Clanton want a swift trial and the death penalty, but Brigance digs in and discovers that there is more to the story than meets the eye. Jake’s fierce commitment to saving Drew from the gas chamber puts his career, his financial security, and the safety of his family on the line.

Attorney Nate Shepherd’s newest client stands accused of a fatal hit and run. While Nate doesn’t believe that the CEO of Carrefour’s largest charity would ever smash into a person and flee the scene, a blood-streaked van says otherwise. A freewheeling prosecutor is certain that Nate’s client did it, and more, that the killing wasn’t an accident at all. With help from old friends and an intriguing new one, Nate uncovers incriminating acts, secret relationships, and a massive motive that has him scrambling for answers.

The Summons: Once Judge Atlee was a powerful figure in Clanton, Mississippi. Now the judge is a sick, lonely old man who has withdrawn to his sprawling ancestral home. Knowing the end is near, Judge Atlee has issued a summons for his two sons to return to Clanton to discuss his estate. The Brethren: They call themselves the Brethren: three disgraced former judges doing time in a Florida federal prison. In prison these judges-turned-felons can reminisce about old court cases, dispense a little jailhouse justice, and contemplate where their lives went wrong. Or they can use their time in prison to get very rich, very fast.

Seth Hubbard is a wealthy man dying of lung cancer. He trusts no one. Before he hangs himself from a sycamore tree, Hubbard leaves a new, handwritten, will. It is an act that drags his adult children, his Black maid, and Jake into a conflict as riveting and dramatic as the murder trial that made Brigance one of Ford County's most notorious citizens, just three years earlier. The second will raises far more questions than it answers. Why would Hubbard leave nearly all of his fortune to his maid? Had chemotherapy and painkillers affected his ability to think clearly?

We expect our judges to be honest and wise. Their integrity and impartiality are the bedrock of the entire judicial system. We trust them to ensure fair trials, to protect the rights of all litigants, to punish those who do wrong, and to oversee the orderly and efficient flow of justice. But what happens when a judge bends the law or takes a bribe? It’s rare, but it happens. Lacy Stoltz is an investigator for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct. She is a lawyer, not a cop, and it is her job to respond to complaints dealing with judicial misconduct.

Pete Banning was Clanton's favorite son, a returning war hero, the patriarch of a prominent family, a farmer, a father, a neighbor, and a faithful member of the Methodist church. Then one cool October morning in 1946, he rose early, drove into town, walked into the church, and calmly shot and killed the Reverend Dexter Bell.

Given the importance of what they do, and the controversies that often surround them, and the violent people they sometimes confront, it is remarkable that in the history of this country only four active federal judges have been murdered. Judge Raymond Fawcett has just become number five.... Nothing is as it seems and everything’s fair game in this wickedly clever new novel from John Grisham, the undisputed master of the legal thriller.

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.

The year is 2008 and Samantha Kofer's career at a huge Wall Street law firm is on the fast track - until the recession hits and she gets downsized, furloughed, escorted out of the building. Samantha, though, is one of the "lucky" associates. She's offered an opportunity to work at a legal aid clinic for one year without pay, after which there would be a slim chance that she'd get her old job back. In a matter of days Samantha moves from Manhattan to Brady, Virginia, population 2,200, in the heart of Appalachia, a part of the world she has only read about.

Leo had been raised by his older brother, Teddy, a top criminal lawyer both renowned and notorious for his talent and ruthlessness. Though different in character and viewpoint, Leo always tried to emulate Teddy, striving to be recognized by his brother as a fellow lawyer in his own right. The two are at lunch when Teddy, supposed to give the closing argument of his current trial that afternoon, is shot - in public, in the middle of the bar. But the shooter escapes without Leo catching even a glimpse of him.

Hollywood actor Robert Soloman stands accused of stabbing his wife and her lover, but he is pleading that he had nothing to do with it. This is the trial of the century, and the defence want Eddie Flynn on their team. The biggest case Eddie has ever tried before, he decides to take it on despite the overwhelming evidence that Robert is guilty. As the trial starts, Eddie becomes sure of Robert's innocence, but there's something else he is even more sure of - that there is something sinister going on in the jury box.

Best-selling author Linda Fairstein, who "makes legal issues more exciting than any high-speed chase" ( The New York Times), presents these thrilling stories of lawyers under pressure, criminals facing the needle, and heartbroken families who hope for justice and who sometimes take it into their own hands.

Detective Lindsay Boxer's long-awaited wedding celebration becomes a distant memory when she is called to investigate a horrendous crime: a badly injured teenage girl is left for dead, and her newborn baby is nowhere to be found. Lindsay discovers that not only is there no trace of the criminals - but that the victim may be keeping secrets as well.

In the biggest case of her career, attorney Kate Sullivan is tapped as lead counsel to take on Mason Pharmaceutical because of a corporate cover-up related to its newest drug. After a whistleblower dies, Kate knows the stakes are much higher than her other lawsuits. Former Army Ranger turned private investigator Landon James is still haunted by mistakes made while serving overseas. He is hired by Kate to look into the whistleblower's allegation and soon suspects that the company may be engaging in a dangerous game for profit.