Legal Thriller Crime Fiction

Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Roger "Butch" Karp has been around New York long enough to realize that the judicial system can be dirty and cynical. But he still believes in justice. So when a vicious sociopath tries to dodge a brutal murder charge by convincing the court he is incompetent to stand trial, Karp teams up with firecracker Assistant DA Marlene Ciampi to unleash the full force of their relentless energy, hardboiled wit, and passion for the truth to put the killer away for good. They will accept no lesser plea.

Ansel Largent is a respected Chicago attorney; ferocious in the courtroom but a winner with the jury. Happy at home with wife Libby, a stroke victim. Happy at the office with Melinda, a married woman with a special interest in him. When everything unravels in one night, Ansel’s life is put under the microscope, and his plastic character brings his sanity into question. Thaddeus Murfee is hired to defend his most complicated trial yet, but when all the chips are down, even he is struck speechless at the outcome.

The dead body found in Flagstaff is not hard to identify - the District Attorney had been a well known figure. His wife admits that she pulled the trigger, but her attorney Thaddeus Murfee finds a confusing mess of evidence that tells a different story. When a beautiful teen girl arrives, Thad has to make a decision with terrifying consequences. The riveting story of one lawyer’s attempt to redeem himself, one wife’s attempt to free herself, and one young girl’s hope of a new life after years of unspeakable abuse.

Attorney Jack Newlin comes home one evening to find his wife dead on the floor. Convinced that he knows who killed her, and determined to hide the truth, Jack decides to make it look as though he committed the felony. Before calling the police, he stages the crime, so that the evidence incriminates him. And to hammer the final nail in his own coffin, he hires Mary Di Nunzio, a reluctant rookie and the most inexperienced lawyer he can find, at a hot Philadelphia firm.

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.

Teen pop star Brittany Crutcher is found dead in small-town Tennessee. For attorney Bocephus Haynes, it’s just another night in Pulaski. Bo swore off criminal work after his last case, but the beloved singer’s murder demands answers. The prime suspect is local high school football hero and the victim’s boyfriend, Odell Champagne. However, this fallen athlete is one of Bo’s son’s best friends. Bo knows this young man and does not believe him capable of the crime. When Odell is charged with murder, Bo reluctantly takes the case, sparking outrage throughout the town.

Identical, based loosely on the myth of Castor and Pollux, is the story of identical twins, Paul and Cass Giannis, and the complex relationships between their family and their former neighbors, the Kronons. The audiobook focuses principally on events in 2008, when Paul is a candidate for Mayor of Kindle County, and Cass is released from the penitentiary, 25 years after pleading guilty to the murder of his girlfriend, Athena Kronon.

Lawyer Arthur Beauchamp is facing the most explosive trial of his career: the defence of seven boisterous environmentalists accused of sabotaging an Ontario plant that pumps out a pesticide that has led to the mass death of honeybees. The story zigzags between Toronto, where the trial takes place, and Arthur’s West Coast island home, where he finds himself arrested for fighting his own environmental cause: the threatened destruction of a popular park. The Toronto trial concludes with a tense, hang-by-the-fingernails jury verdict.

In the Company of Liars is that rare animal - a truly original thriller, strikingly fresh and unpredictable. Told chronologically in reverse, from its enigmatic end to its brilliant beginning, it's centered around a woman on trial for murder - Allison Pagone, who is caught between competing forces, each represented by someone who may not care if the pressure kills her in the end.

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.

Defense Attorney Robin Lockwood is summoned by retired District Attorney Francis Melville to meet with him at Black Oaks, the manor he owns up in the Oregon mountains. The manor has an interesting history - originally built in 1628 in England, there's a murderous legend and curse attached to the mansion. Melville, however, wants Lockwood's help in a legal matter - righting a wrongful conviction from his days as a DA.

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.

A girl dies one late, rainy night a few feet from the back door of her home. The girl, Abeba, was born in Ethiopia. Her adoptive parents, Delvin and Betsy Harvey—conservative, white fundamentalist Christians—are charged with her murder.

Robin Lockwood is an increasingly prominent defense attorney in the Portland community. A Yale graduate and former MMA fighter, she's becoming known for her string of innovative and successful defense strategies. As a favor to a judge, Robin takes on the pro bono defense of a reprehensible defendant charged with even more reprehensible crimes. But what she doesn't know—what she can't know—is how this one decision, this one case, will wreak complete devastation on her life and plans.

Sara Tate, a Manhattan assistant DA, is on the brink of losing her job. But then she takes a case that may be able to secure her future. Trouble is, it’s much more complicated—and deadly—than it initially appears. While forces within her own office plot against her, an outside threat takes things to another level: Win the case or her attorney husband, Jared, will die. But Jared has received threats, too. Forced to defend the opposition, he learns that, if loses the case, Sara will be killed. Caught in a struggle of emotions and shocking betrayals, both must face the unthinkable.

She's old-money Miami. He's barefoot Coconut Grove. The only thing they had in common was the law, until they faced each other in the steamiest murder trial of the century, a case that would make sparks fly, headlines scream, and opposites attract. Surrounded by crooks, con men, and a cast of colorful characters, Steve Solomon and Vickie Lord must solve the crime before they end up in ruin, in jail, or, worse, in bed.

Samantha Brinkman, an ambitious, hard-charging Los Angeles criminal defense attorney, is struggling to make a name for herself and to drag her fledgling practice into the big leagues. Sam lands a high-profile double-murder case in which one of the victims is a beloved TV star - and the defendant is a decorated veteran LAPD detective. It promises to be exactly the kind of media sensation that would establish her as a heavy hitter in the world of criminal law.

Darren Street faces the most personal and ruthless vendetta of his life. After forfeiting years serving time for a false murder conviction, former criminal defense attorney Darren Street finally got his freedom back and is trying to build a regular life. But when an unthinkable tragedy shatters his hard-earned normalcy, Street is left reeling from the devastating blow.

MediMiracle Corporation manufactures Sophrosyne, a miracle cure for opiate addiction. Ellison Ricard, a research analyst for the company, claims to have uncovered data that proves Black users of Sophrosyne experience fatal side effects far more often than people of other races. When Ricard confronts MediMiracle’s charismatic founder and CEO, Peyton Burke, a violent confrontation ensues. The wheelchair-bound Ricard—a Black man who had been severely injured years earlier—is fired that very day.