Legal Thriller Crime Fiction

Betrayed by his own country, former spy Charles Jenkins survived an undercover Russian operation gone wrong. The retired family man is through with spy games. Then he learns of a woman isolated in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo Prison. If it’s Paulina Ponomayova, the agent who sacrificed her life to save his, Jenkins can’t leave her behind. But there’s no guarantee it’s her. Or proof Paulina is still alive. To find out, Jenkins must return to Russia and blackmail Viktor Federov, a former Russian officer with his own ax to grind, into helping him infiltrate Lefortovo.

It’s the most sensational case of the decade. Fifteen-year-old Jessica Silver, heiress to a billion-dollar real estate fortune, vanishes on her way home from school, and her teacher, Bobby Nock, a 25-year-old African American man, is the prime suspect. The subsequent trial taps straight into America’s most pressing preoccupations: race, class, sex, law enforcement, and the lurid sins of the rich and famous.

From the bestselling author of A Killer’s Wife, Victor Methos’s acclaimed Desert Plains series continues with the saga of two brilliant defense attorneys and a client whose confession may not be what it seems.

A murder committed in front of a million online viewers. Everyone clicked. Watched. Commented. Shared. No one intervened. Desperate for fame and fortune, there’s never been a get-rich-quick scheme housewife Juliet Clay hasn’t chased. When she finally goes viral selling diet shakes, she figures all her dreams have come true. But when her husband ends up dead from poison, Juliet’s dreams become a nightmare and she’s the prime murder suspect. A sucker for lost causes, Defense Attorney Cass Leary takes the case to pay forward a favor she owes.

A young woman accuses a prominent local college athlete of rape. Convicted with the help of indisputable DNA evidence, the athlete swears his innocence and threatens both his lawyer and his accuser as he's sent to prison. Not long after, there's another rape, and the DNA test shows that the same person committed both rapes - which is seemingly impossible since the man convicted of the first rape was in prison at the time of the second one. Now, the convicted athlete, joined by a new lawyer, is granted a new trial and bail.

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.

Qui a tué Carolyn, une talentueuse avocate aussi belle que sans scrupules, retrouvée ligotée dans son luxueux appartement ? Viol suivi de meurtre ou crime prémédité ? L'enquête menée en pleine campagne électorale par l'adjoint du procureur Rusty Sabich n'avance pas. Et quand on découvre que cet homme secret et complexe a été l'amant de Carolyn, il fait aussitôt figure de coupable idéal.

As changes in Wyoming banking law bring an influx of crypto entrepreneurs to small-town Custer, attorney Sam Johnstone doesn’t think much of the new arrivals. But when a shocking crime throws him straight into the epicenter of the digital world, there’s no turning back. The death of crypto exchange magnate Max Kovalenko shatters the community, sparking local outrage and a long list of suspects. With many betrayed partners, jealous competitors, and bitter family members left in his wake, Max has stepped on plenty of toes since his arrival, and finding his killer is no easy task.

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.

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.

Now that attorney Jason Rich has returned home to Guntersville, Alabama, the “In an accident? Get rich!” lawyer is anxious to leave his checkered past behind. Jason hopes this next chapter in his life will be a chance to confront his personal troubles while making amends with his family. But when a former high school football star stands accused of killing a police officer, Jason is unwillingly thrust into the chaos.

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.

From the blockbuster bestselling author of the Eve Duncan novels comes a new, stand alone thriller about a woman with a photographic memory who has lived her life in the Witness Protection Program. What she once put her entire family in jeopardy and now, years later, her cover is blown. She’s on the run, and the lives of those she holds dear hang in the balance. As only Iris Johansen can do, you won’t see the twists coming.

With money and hope in short supply, newly minted attorney Brigham Theodore decides it’s time to lower his standards. He joins a seedy fly-by-night firm in Salt Lake City out of desperation. After he loses his first case - a speeding ticket - he’s convinced his career is over. But to his shock, his boss hands him a slightly more complex case: capital murder.

Eric’s wife, Anne, has followed the advice of handsome lawyer Mark Fenham and invested a small fortune in a merchant bank also involved in underwriting marine insurance. Now her company must pay out a vast insurance claim for the Sea Dawn, a ship sunk in Spanish waters. Eric Ward smells fraud. His wife could lose everything. And then, one by one, people connected to the Sea Dawn start to die. The murderous trail takes Ward to sunny Spain—where he comes face-to-face with his arch enemy. Will Ward uncover the truth about the sinking of the Sea Dawn?

Meet Claire Heller Chapman. A criminal defense attorney who's made a name for herself by taking on—and winning—the toughest cases, Claire still manages to have a relatively calm life as a Harvard Law School professor, devoted wife, and proud mother to six-year-old Annie. Until one night, when the family is out having dinner, a team of government agents bursts onto the scene…heading straight for Claire's husband.

Attorney Daniel Raine has recently gone out on his own and is now struggling to make rent. So when he's invited to a fundraiser gala at a downtown Seattle art gallery, he sees it as a chance to find some new clients among the city's wealthy elite. And it works in the most unexpected way—when a young artist is found dead in the women's restroom. The assigned detective declares it a suicide, and the young woman's parents promptly sue the gallery owner for driving their daughter to take her own life. Raine is hired to defend the lawsuit and embarks on a mission to exonerate his client.

Coroner Jenny Cooper investigates…. An unlikely suicide or a deadly conspiracy? When Bristol Coroner Jenny Cooper investigates the fatal plunge of a man from a motorway bridge, she little suspects that it has any connection with the sudden death of a friend’s thirteen year old daughter from a deadly strain of meningitis. But as Jenny pieces together the dead man’s last days, she’s drawn into a mystery whose dark ripples stretch across continents and back through decades.

Writer, journalist and chronicler of justice as it relates to the rich and famous, Gus Bailey, like the movers and shakers of Los Angeles, is drawn into the vortex of the O. J. Simpson trial. By day, he is a fixture at the lawyers, the journalists, the hangers-on, and even the judge. By night, he is courted by the most celebrated hosts, from Kirk Douglas to Heidi Fleiss, from Elizabeth Taylor to Nancy Reagan, who delight in the hottest news from the corridors of the courtroom.

Jack Swyteck’s new client fled Iran to Miami with her daughter, and has been accused of kidnapping by her husband. The seasoned attorney must not only plan a winning defense. To stop the father from taking the girl back to Tehran, Jack must build a case under international law and prove that returning the child would put her at risk. But everything in this case isn’t what it seems, and Jack quickly learns that his client is really the child’s aunt and that the biological mother may have been killed by Iran’s morality police.