Legal Mystery Thriller Suspense

McMurtrie’s old nemesis, Jack Willistone, is found dead on the banks of the Black Warrior River. Willistone had his share of enemies, but all evidence points to a forgotten, broken woman as the killer. At the urging of the suspect’s desperate fourteen-year-old daughter, McMurtrie agrees to take the case.

Twenty years ago, a nine-year-old boy was swept away by powerful waves on a remote Oregon beach, his body lost to the sea. Only a stone memorial remains to mark his tragic death. For most of her life, Amanda Dufresne had no idea she had an older brother named Dennis Owens, or that he had died. Adopted as a baby, she learned about him while looking into her late birth mother, and is curious to know more about this lost sibling. A solitary young woman, Amanda has always felt distanced from the world around her. Her brain works differently from others, leaving her feeling set apart.

At the annual Harvest Festival carnival, while everyone else is playing games and having fun, someone commits murder. As Deborah investigates, she must struggle to win a carny's confidence while a dark web of dangerous secrets begins to unravel.

Jack Dana is a former marine infantry officer and Force Recon platoon leader. He is also the author of three successful books. It may seem odd that someone like Jack - honor graduate of the corps' toughest combat schools - should become a novelist. But there's the other side of Jack: the Yale graduate, the only child of a Harvard philosophy professor father and a flutist mother who played with a Boston-based chamber orchestra. As Jack would say, "The truth is that to everything there is a season."

Butch Karp has never shied away from a difficult case, and when Croatian terrorists hijack a plane and kill an NYPD bomb squad cop in a bomb blast, he’s eager to prosecute the high-profile killers. But Karp’s aggression puts him at risk when his investigations uncover messy government secrets. Certain elements of the FBI and CIA don’t want the trial to go forward, and are willing to go to extremes to sabotage Karp's case.

Charlie Webb is a third rate lawyer who graduated from a third rate law-school and, because he couldn’t get hired by any of the major law firms, has opened his own law firm, where he gets by handling cases for dubious associates from his youth and some court appointed cases. Described as “a leaky boat floating down the stream of life,” Charlie has led unremarkable life, personally and professionally. Until he’s appointed to be the attorney for a decidedly crackpot artist who calls himself Guido Sabatini (born Lawrence Weiss).

The man most hated by the LAPD - a black lawyer who has made his name by bringing lawsuits alleging racism and brutality by police officers - has been found murdered on the eve of a high-profile trial. The list of suspects includes half the police force. And Harry Bosch is the detective chosen to head the investigation. The political dangers of the case are huge. If it's not investigated fairly, the public outcry could make the Rodney King riots look tame. But a full investigation will take Bosch into the ugliest corners of law enforcement.

When a drive-by shooting in Holyoke, Massachusetts, claims the lives of a Puerto Rican drug dealer and a nurse at a neighborhood clinic, the police arrest a black drug dealer. With no death penalty in Massachusetts, the US attorney shifts the double homicide out of state jurisdiction into federal court so that he can pursue the death penalty.

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?

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.

A German Shepherd police dog witnesses a murder and if his owner - an Iraq war vet and former cop-turned-thief - is convicted of the crime, the dog could be put down. Few rival Andy Carpenter's affection for dogs, and he decides to represent the poor canine. As Andy struggles to convince a judge that this dog should be set free, he discovers that the dog and his owner have become involved unwittingly in a case of much greater proportions than the one they've been charged with.

Defense lawyer Cass Leary never backs down from a case. Though after her latest high-profile courtroom win, the ex-mafia attorney thinks she's finally earned a little rest and relaxation. But when her paralegal begs her to defend a potentially innocent man who was convicted of homicide, she puts vacation on hold to fight for justice. With the convicted killer now terminally ill and behind bars, Cass digs deeper despite the whole town resisting her at every turn.

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.

When a massacre at an elite private high school leaves 17 dead and a city reeling with horror, Philadelphia assistant district attorney Jessica Black will stop at nothing to find justice for the victims. But doing so will require facing an adversary even more terrifying than the teenage shooter.

The murder of a woman from one of the town's oldest families has Rosedale's upper crust howling for blood, and the prosecutor is counting on Ruby's inexperience to help him deliver a swift conviction. Ruby's client is a college football star who has returned home after a career-ending injury, and she is determined to build a defense that will stick. She finds help in unexpected quarters from Suzanne, a hard-charging attorney armed to the teeth, and Shorty, a diner cook who knows more than he lets on.

Cass is stunned when a man she hasn’t seen or spoken to in twenty years wills his law practice to her. His client list contains a single name. Farrah Sibley. Accused of murdering her boss, Farrah has femme fatale written all over her. Beautiful. Smart. Cunning. But is she capable of such a cold-blooded killing? Shot once through the heart, the victim, prominent lawyer Terrence Dowd only had one enemy.

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.

Mitch Arno always meant bad news for the coastal town of Folsum, Oregon. When they ran him out of town 17 years ago, he left behind a wife with two daughters and a family that never wanted to see him again. When he returns, he brings trouble in the form of a lot of suspicious money. As Barbara attempts to counsel Mitch's wife about the money, a second form of trouble arrives: Mitch's corpse.

Small-town lawyer Bocephus Haynes comes home late one night to find District Attorney General Helen Lewis waiting for him. Her ex-husband has just been killed. She’s about to be arrested for his murder. And she wants Bo to represent her. There’s a lot working against them. Just before his death, Helen’s ex-husband threatened to reveal a dark secret from her past. Bo has been in a tailspin since his wife’s death.

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.