Legal Suspense

Thaddeus Murfee is 25, single, a lawyer of 18 months, and completely unprepared for the murder case that walks in. While Ermeline was passed out, her date carved his name in her breasts. Heavy, thick letters: V-I-C-T-O-R. The guilty party is found murdered. Or was he guilty? Ermeline is arrested because she had motive and opportunity. She hires Thaddeus, who makes his debut defending his first murder case in this courtroom drama.

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.

Outside the Hope & Glory pub, a man has been left to die. A victim of extraordinary violence, he will never walk or speak again. He remains in hospital, nameless, until criminal defence lawyer Sarah Kellerman walks onto his ward. Sarah barely recognises the man she once worked with. He was honourable and kind - what was he involved in? Who wanted him dead?

In southeast London, a young mother has been accused of an unthinkable crime: poisoning her own child - and then leaving him to die. The mother, Ellie, is secretive and challenging - she's had a troubled upbringing - but does that mean she's capable of murder? Balancing the case with raising her disabled five-year-old son, criminal defence lawyer Sarah Kellerman sets out in desperate pursuit of the truth. But when her own child becomes unwell, Sarah realises she's been drawn into a dangerous game.

Sometimes a man can be redeemed. But not in the way he expects. Jason Stafford is a former Wall Street hotshot who made some bad moves, paid the price with two years in prison, and is now trying to put his life back together. He’s unemployable, until an investment firm asks him to look into possible problems left by a junior trader who died recently in an accident. What he discovers is big - there are problems, all right, the kind that get you killed. But it’s not his only concern. Stafford has another quest as well: to reclaim his five-year-old son, "the Kid", from his unstable ex-wife, and then learn just what it means to make a life with him.

A year ago, fresh out of Harvard Law School, Mike Ford landed his dream job at the Davies Group, Washington's most powerful consulting firm. Now, he's staring down the barrel of a gun, pursued by two of the world's most dangerous men. To get out, he'll have to do all the things he thought he'd never do again: lie, cheat, steal - and this time, maybe even kill. Mike grew up in a world of small-stakes con men, learning lessons at his father's knee. His hard-won success in college and law school was his ticket out.

Criminal lawyer Marta Richter is hours away from winning an acquittal for her client, millionaire businessman Elliot Steere, on trial for the murder of a homeless man who tried to carjack him. But as the jury begins deliberations, Marta discovers the chilling truth about her client's innocence. Taking justice into her own hands, she furiously sets out to prove the truth, with the help of two young associates.

A small-time drug dealer is found battered to death on the outskirts of the Norwegian capital, Oslo. A young Dutchman, walking aimlessly in central Oslo covered in blood, is taken into custody but refuses to talk. When he is informed that the woman who discovered the body, Karen Borg, is a lawyer, he demands her as his defender, although her specialty is civil, not criminal, law. The young man is adamant: he will speak to Karen Borg, and to her alone.

Despite their Israeli citizenship, Hana and Daud cannot safely return to their homeland because a dangerous terrorist ring is threatening Daud. Hana is perfectly fine remaining in the United States, working for a law firm in Atlanta, especially when she learns she’s pregnant. But Daud can’t shake the draw to return home to Israel, even if it makes him a walking target. Hana is helping her boss plan a huge Middle East summit in Atlanta when Jakob Brodsky, her old friend and former co-litigator, asks for her help with a case.

Leo Maxwell thinks he's found a career-making case when a mysterious woman nearly runs him down, then appears at his office to hire him to defend her brother on a murder charge. One problem: Leo hasn't actually met the client when he sets out to investigate what seems like a hot tip on a burgeoning scandal in the Oakland Police Department. When he presents evidence of deep-set corruption in the Department to the District Attorney's office, he quickly learns that all is not as it seems, beginning with Leo's client and the alluring woman who hired him.

Natasha is completely alone, although she's surrounded by people. Freshly arrived in England on a train full of refugees from a vicious war in mainland Europe, she's left everything behind—including her fourteen-year-old son. It's not long before she runs into trouble. Natasha finds herself in peril, surrounded in a dark London alleyway by men who wish her harm. Also in the alleyway is a man in a robe. A preacher with a most unusual skill set for a man of the cloth.

Three victims, three bullets, three cities. The shooters' aim is as fearsomely precise as their target selection. When Lindsay realizes that the fallen men and women excel in a lucrative, criminal activity, she leads the charge in the manhunt for the killers. As the casualty list expands, fear and fascination with this suspicious shooting gallery galvanizes the country. The victims were no angels, but are the shooters villains . . . or heroes?

It’s 1933, and Ivor Castle, Oxford-educated and Jewish, arrives in Palestine to take up a position as assistant to the defense counsel in the trial of the two men accused of murdering Haim Arlosoroff, a leader of the Jewish community in Palestine whose efforts to get Jews out of Hitler’s Germany and into Palestine may have been controversial enough to get him killed.

The Mercy Rule is a brilliant and moving human drama set against a backdrop of relentless suspense, legal complexity and moral ambiguity. Dismas Hardy, the former bartender, loving husband and father, and reluctant defense attorney of The 13th Juror, returns here in his most challenging case.

Five years ago Barbara Holloway gave up practicing law, disillusioned with a profession that put politics before justice. Then she receives a phone call, with a simple message: "I need you."

Sheila Harrison Grant is the first African American woman ever nominated to the federal bench in Cleveland. But when her 13-year-old daughter Olivia shares a family secret with a well-meaning guidance counselor, she sets the wheels in motion to feed partisan opposition, threatening her mother’s position…and both of their lives. Casey Cort made the mistake of crossing a classmate from a prominent and influential family. Now she works as a faceless cog. When fate gives Casey a second chance, she has to find the strength to fight for those with nowhere else to turn.

Hundreds of years in the future our civilization is shrunk down but we go on. There is advanced technology, there are robots. And there are clones. E. A. Smithe is a borrowed person, his personality an uploaded recording of a deceased mystery writer. Smithe is a piece of property, not a legal human. As such, Smithe can be loaned to other branches. Which he is. Along with two fellow reclones, a cookbook and romance writer, they are shipped to Polly's Cove, where Smithe meets a little girl who wants to save her mother, a father who is dead but perhaps not.

For ten years, Jessie's career as a prosecutor at the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office has given her a mission in life, enabled her to fight for victims and their families, and deeply fulfilled her. She cannot imagine doing anything else. But when a new DA replaces her boss in a shocking election victory, all of that changes in a heartbeat. The new regime cares nothing about justice, only politics. The message is clear—Jessie can adapt to the office's new priorities, or leave. Her dilemma intensifies when the DA targets a family friend who is close to Jessie's heart.

Jessie Black is on the outside looking in. No longer an assistant DA, she now struggles to find meaning in a new career defending wealthy tax cheats. But when the teenage granddaughter of a colleague is arrested for murder, Jessie suddenly finds herself back where she belongs—fighting for justice in Philadelphia criminal court. District Attorney Damon Faber doesn't care about justice. He stokes a venomous, personal obsession with Jessie, and he seizes this murder trial as his chance to vent his hatred—not just by beating Jessie in the courtroom, but by crushing her heart and soul.

Celebrities get away with murder. Assistant District Attorney Jessie Black doesn’t believe that. She believes the law applies to everyone, and that justice and truth prevail. But according to veteran prosecutor Ned Ransom, it’s exactly what happened six years ago, when hip-hop superstar Jurdel Frazier threw his wife off a fifteenth floor hotel balcony and was found not guilty by a starstruck jury.