Legal Suspense Thrillers

Retiring prosecutor Jessica Yardley can’t turn down one last investigation. This time, it’s a set of murders inspired by a series of grisly paintings called The Night Things. She’s the only one who can catch the killer, who’s left a trail of bodies in a rural community outside of Las Vegas. But the more Jessica finds out, the less clear her case becomes. Out of options, she’s forced to consult her serial killer ex-husband - to gain additional insight into the crimes and the killer’s motivations.

You can pick your friends, they say, but you can't pick your family. And lately, Mike Daley's family has been keeping him very busy. An ex-priest, ex-public defender, and ex-corporate lawyer, Daley and his former wife, Rosie Fernandez, now run their own San Francisco criminal defense firm. Most of their cases are fairly small-time, which is why it would be surprising that the person accused of murdering movie director Richard (Big Dick) MacArthur is calling them - except that the accused is Rosie's own niece, Angelina.

Teddy Fay, a rogue agent last seen escaping an imploding building in Iron Orchid, has been considered dead for some time now. But President Will Lee thinks Teddy may still be alive. In a top-secret Oval Office meeting, Stone learns that he and his cohorts, Holly Barker and Dino Baldachetti, are being sent to the beautiful Caribbean island of St. Marks, courtesy of the CIA, to track down Teddy once and for all.

When the head of San Francisco's largest HMO dies in his own hospital, no one doubts that it is anything but the result of massive injuries inflicted by a random hit-and-run accident. But the autopsy soon tells a different story - an overdose of potassium killed him, and the attending physician, Eric Kensing, becomes the prime suspect in a high-profile homicide.

Altar of Ashes, a debut novel by a respected author of non-fiction, opens with two hunters witnessing a horror in the backwoods of Indiana: the rite of sati, with the bride on the funeral pyre a 10-year-old girl. The book, which pokes a multicultural hornet’s nest, was launched at the 2023 Frankfurt Book Fair. The inciting incident draws the local prosecutor into a spectacular case revolving around religious toleration and cultural bigotry, which sweeps the town into a vortex of national publicity. His opponent in the courtroom an African-American giant of legal repute.

When Matilda Benson solicits the help of Perry Mason, her request seems simple enough: cruise to a gambling ship moored just beyond the twelve-mile limit and buy back the IOUs signed by Miss Benson's niece. But after Mason reaches the floating casino, he discovers problems aplenty - most notably the ship's owner with a bullet hole through his head. Strangely enough, Matilda and her niece are also on board that night...when someone tosses a gun over the railing. Does Perry Mason's client have something to hide?

A dead man in the kitchen, gas fumes permeate the house, a duck seems to be drowning in the fishbowl, but it didn't die. Maybe that fact has something to do with murder? John L. Witherspoon, a wealthy patrician, is loath to let his daughter marry Marvin Adams, the son of a convicted murderer, something Marvin's mother managed to keep a secret - until now. To set the love-struck lass straight, Witherspoon engages Perry Mason to weigh the 20-year-old evidence that sent Marvin's father to the gallows, and prove that the young man is kin to the murdering kind.

Aspiring actress Stephane Olger just wants to be in pictures. But she may end up in mug shots instead when she gets herself caught up in a crime. Shortly after quitting her job and moving to Hollywood, she is picked up by a well-dressed man while hitchhiking. The man loses control of the car and they end up in a horrible accident. Both Stephane and the driver escape unscathed but the strange man flees the scene leaving Stephane to face a charge of manslaughter.

The irrepressible, audacious defence barrister Horace Rumpole continues to juggle the vagaries of the law, the ambiguities of crime, and the contradictions of the human heart. The much loved stories were adapted from his scripts for the hugely popular TV series of the same name.

Attorney Laurel Chandler did not come back to Bayou Breaux to seek justice. That once-burning obsession had destroyed her credibility, her career, her marriage - and nearly her sanity. But when a ruthless predator strikes too close to home, she's lured into a perverse game from which there may be no escape. Once before, Laurel's cries against a monstrous evil went unanswered. Who will listen now?

Deputy District Attorney Samantha Kincaid walks into her office in Portland's Drug and Vice Division one morning to find the sergeant of the police bureau's vice unit waiting for her. A 13-year-old girl has been brutally attacked and left for dead on the city's outskirts. Given the lack of evidence, most lawyers would settle for an assault charge; Samantha, unnerved by the viciousness of the crime, decides to go for attempted murder.

An ambitious Stanford graduate, David Adams has begun a fast-track career at Austin’s most prestigious law firm. It’s a personal victory for the rising superstar - a satisfying reversal from his impoverished and despairing childhood. Now he has the life he’s always wanted: An extravagant salary, a high-rise condo, a luxury SUV, and no limit to how far he can go in the eyes of the top partners.

A defense attorney who lives his life in shades of gray, Victor Carl fights all the right fights for all the wrong reasons. With a failing legal practice, a dead-end love life, and a pile of unpaid traffic tickets, Victor skates on the razor's edge of legal ethics in search of the easy buck. But the one absolute in Victor's life is loyalty, especially to a client, even if he happens to be dead.

After an impressive performance in front of a full house, local college basketball stand-out Davonte Blair celebrates the victory with a few friends. But when a fierce argument over drugs ensues, the evening takes a violent turn — and one member of the group goes missing. When police discover the body of the basketball team manager, the town turns into a tinderbox of emotions. The media is calling it a hate crime. The college president is desperate to avoid a scandal. And the police department is under intense pressure to solve the horrific case.

After working to free his father from prison in Fox Is Framed, Leo has now left private practice and is working as a public defender in San Francisco. He and his cocounsel, Jordan Walker, are in the midst of trial, brilliantly defending Randall Rodrigues, a mentally ill homeless man whom they contend falsely confessed to the rape of a young San Francisco socialite. After their client is acquitted, Leo and Jordan fall into an intense relationship - until Jordan is found brutally raped and murdered in her apartment.

Assistant D.A. Alexandra Cooper is deeply involved in a high-profile homicide case against defendant Brendan Quillian, a prominent young businessman charged with the brutal strangulation of his beautiful young wife. His conviction is not a certainty: Quillian was conveniently out of town on the day of the killing, and his defense attorney seems to be one step ahead of Cooper's effort to prove Quillian paid a hit man to commit the crime. But halfway through the trial, a major catastrophe alters the course of Cooper's case.

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.

Smack in the middle of a capital murder trial, small-town prosecutor Mara Brent gets a cryptic note from the defendant. He wants to cut a deal. His freedom in exchange for information about the kidnapping and murder of a young girl that made national news a decade ago. Is he telling the truth? Or is this just the desperate ploy of a marked man?

A woman stumbles onto a dark road in rural Oregon - tortured, battered, and bound. She tells a horrific story about being kidnapped, then tortured, until she finally managed to escape. She was the lucky one - two other women, with similar burns and bruises, were found dead. The surviving victim identifies the house where she was held captive, and the owner, Alex Mason - a prominent local attorney - is arrested.

Martin H. Ehrengraf, dapper and diabolical, may be Lawrence Block's darkest creation. He's the defense attorney who never sees the inside of a courtroom, because all his clients are innocent - no matter how guilty they may seem. Some even believe themselves to be guilty: They remember pulling the trigger, or wiring the dynamite to their spouse's car, or holding the bloody blade. But things have a way of working out when Martin Ehrengraf is on the case.