Legal Suspense

Now a priest has been murdered, and a clue left at the scene suggests it to be the work of a vigilante. Was the priest a sexual predator? Could the Saint be back? For the members of the Stillwater law-enforcement community, it means that a killer could be in their midst.

Criminal defense attorney Mitch Turner is tempted to turn down the most recent case that walks through his door because the prospective client, Candy Carlisle, sends out all the wrong vibes. He decides to take it, though, because he is concerned about Candy’s children.

Cold-blooded killer JimBone Wheeler blames Tom McMurtrie for putting him on death row. He once vowed that he’d bring “a reckoning” on Tom and everyone the southern lawyer holds dear. When Wheeler escapes from prison, he aims to fulfill his promise. Victim by victim, he’s getting closer to his ultimate target. But for Tom, who’s dying of cancer, the role of savior and protector is a struggle that is becoming more desperate by the hour.

Mary DiNunzio is a trademark Lisa Scottoline heroine - she's strong, she's smart, and she's got plenty of attitude. In recent years, she's become a big-time business-getter at Rosato & Associates, but the last person she expects to walk into her office one morning - in mile-high stilettos - is super sexy Trish Gambone, her high school rival.

A young woman is haunted by two murders that are closely linked -- despite the 110 years that separate them.

Following the breakup of her marriage and her pursuit by an obsessed stalker, criminal defense attorney Emily Graham accepts an offer to work in a major Manhattan law firm. Feeling a need for roots, she buys her ancestral home in New Jersey, which her family sold in 1892, after the disappearance of young Madeline Shapley, one of Emily's forebears.

Attorney Scott Ellis is defending Lester Garrison, a 16-year-old accused of opening fire one Sunday afternoon on a gathering of high-school students. While fighting for Lester's freedom, Scott volunteers at Catawba High School and stumbles onto a tangible evil that is fueling a rage-filled hate to its breaking point.

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?

What if the deadliest train wreck in the nation's history was no accident? When a passenger train derails in North Philadelphia with fatal results, idealistic criminal defense attorney Vaughn Coburn takes on the most personal case of his young career. The surviving engineer is his cousin Eddy, and when Eddy asks Vaughn to defend him, he can't help but accept. Vaughn has a debt to repay, for he and his cousin share an old secret—one that changed both their lives forever.

Winner of the British Book Awards, Lifetime Achievement Award, 2007.
Adam Hill is 26 years old and in his first year at a top Chicago law firm. He volunteers for the toughest assignment any lawyer could ask for. His prospective client doesn't want Adam or his law firm. Why would he take on Adam, a complete novice, to defend him? And why would Adam want his case so desperately?

Alex Miller is a criminal defense lawyer leading the life he always imagined. At thirty-five, he is the youngest partner at New York City's most prestigious law firm, with a beautiful wife and a perfect daughter. When Alex's father suddenly passes away, Alex is introduced to Michael Ohlig, a rich and powerful man who holds an almost mythical place in his family lore. But Alex is surprised when Ohlig admits that he's in serious legal trouble, accused of crimes involving hundreds of millions of dollars.

In The 13th Juror, Dismas Hardy, lawyer/investigator, undertakes the defense of Jennifer Witt, accused of murdering her husband and their eight-year-old son as well as her first husband, who had died nine years earlier from an apparent drug overdose. While preparing his case, Hardy learns that both of Jennifer's husbands had physically abused her. But Jennifer refuses to allow a defense that presumes her guilt. She is not guilty, she claims. Hardy is now driven to seek an alternative truth a jury can believe.

Someone has been watching D.A. Rachel Knight - someone who's Rachel's equal in brains, but with more malicious intentions. It began when a near-impossible case fell into Rachel's lap, the suspectless homicide of a homeless man. In the face of courthouse backbiting and a gauzy web of clues, Rachel is determined to deliver justice. She's got back-up: tough-as-nails Detective Bailey Keller. As Rachel and Bailey stir things up, they're shocked to uncover a connection with the vicious murder of an LAPD cop a year earlier.

Joe Lattimore, homeless and trying desperately to provide for his young family, agrees to fight in a no-holds-barred illegal bout, only to have his opponent die. Lattimore now finds himself at the mercy of the fight's organizers who blackmail him into burglarizing a house. However, when he breaks in, he finds a murdered woman on the floor and the police have received an anonymous tip naming him the murderer. Robin Lockwood, an increasingly prominent young attorney and former MMA fighter, agrees to take on his defense.

Determined to enjoy the pace of small-town life, lawyer Sam Johnstone has left his painful past behind and looks forward to taking each new day as it comes. Yet just as he sees peace and tranquility on the horizon, a close friend is charged with murder. Unable to stand quietly by, Sam quickly signs on for the defense. But how can he defend a client who has already confessed to the crime? Further complicating matters, an ethically challenged prosecutor with an ax to grind seems embarked on a personal crusade against Sam.

Change never comes easy, but it comes just the same, and it's on its way to the Park, to Niniltna, in southeast Alaska. This time it concerns the possibility of drilling for oil in a wildlife preserve near there, near Aleutian P.I. Kate Shugak's home territory. Battle lines are drawn across their community, but at least it gives Kate something to do. Still just months after her lover's violent death, though she doesn't know quite how, she is trying to get back into her daily life.

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 heroine of Marie NDiaye’s new novel is Maître Susane, a quiet middle-aged lawyer living a modest existence in Bordeaux, known to all as a consummate and unflappable professional. But when Gilles Principaux shows up at her office asking her to defend his wife, who is accused of a horrific crime, Maître Susane begins to crack.

Mary DiNunzio wants to represent her old friend Simon Pensiera, a sales rep who was wrongly fired by his company, but her partner Bennie Rosato represents the parent company. When she confronts Mary, explaining this is a conflict of interest, an epic battle of wills and legal strategy between the two ensues—ripping the law firm apart, forcing everyone to take sides and turning friend against friend.

Against the backdrop of growing civil rights turmoil in a sultry border town, the hard-drinking ex-POW attorney Hackberry Holland yields to the myriad urgings of his wife, his brother, and his so-called friends to make a bid for a congressional seat - and finds himself embroiled in the seamy world of Texas powerbrokers.

In these witty and comic stories, Horace Rumpole takes on a variety of clients and activities. He, of course, brings each case to a successful end, all the while quoting poetry and drinking claret.