Legal Fiction Thrillers

Zoe Paul never had much. Abandoned as an infant, her grandmother Marilyn raised her, until a tragic accident left Zoe all alone. Now, 16 years later, Zoe discovers an unclaimed check worth millions among her grandmother’s things. With no explanation of why Marilyn never cashed the check or what it was for, Zoe's curiosity quickly turns to suspicion, and she goes to Cass for help.

Defense lawyer Cass Leary never backs down from a case. Though after her latest high-profile courtroom win, the ex-mafia attorney thinks she's finally earned a little rest and relaxation. But when her paralegal begs her to defend a potentially innocent man who was convicted of homicide, she puts vacation on hold to fight for justice. With the convicted killer now terminally ill and behind bars, Cass digs deeper despite the whole town resisting her at every turn.

Sheriff Bill Clancy humbly served the citizens of Maumee County for three decades. He wanted nothing more than to finish his term and retire to the woods he called home. When he’s found shot to death behind the wheel of his own car, every cop in the county is out for blood.

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.

Hours after rejecting the Corrowa People’s native title claim on Brisbane’s Meston Park, Justice Bruce Brosnan is brutally murdered in his home. Days later, lawyers against the claim are also found dead. Aboriginal people were once prohibited from entering Brisbane’s city limits at night, and Meston Park stood on the boundary. The Corrowa’s matriarch, Ethel Cobb, is convinced the murders are the work of an ancient assassin who has returned to destroy the boundary, but Aboriginal lawyer Miranda Eversely isn't so sure.

On a winter's night, a homeless man seeking to get out of the cold enters an office building in Pittsburgh and camps out in the basement. He searches through boxes that he finds there and discovers one containing the office memorabilia of an attorney. He feels a strange affinity for the attorney, who he doesn't know, but who is sitting at his desk four floors up. The lawyer is about to be retained on a medical malpractice case representing the estate of a young mother who died tragically and unexpectedly. One of the deceased mother's children is a teenager, and a good writer.

Law professor Thomas Jackson McMurtrie literally wrote the book on evidence in the state of Alabama. But when a power-hungry colleague uses a recent run-in between McMurtrie and headstrong student Rick Drake to end his career, he is left unsure what to do next.

A significant trial looms. The two lawyers and the judge all have major reasons to worry: Jeri Richards, a newbie judge, is presiding over her first trial concerned she is too inexperienced to handle it. Mike Reigert, the plaintiff’s attorney, must try his biggest case because his client refuses the department store’s huge settlement offers - just to make sure that what they did to her won’t ever happen to anyone else.

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."

Given the importance of what they do, and the controversies that often surround them, and the violent people they sometimes confront, it is remarkable that in the history of this country only four active federal judges have been murdered. Judge Raymond Fawcett has just become number five.... Nothing is as it seems and everything’s fair game in this wickedly clever new novel from John Grisham, the undisputed master of the legal thriller.

Defense lawyer Cass Leary believes wholeheartedly in justice for all. So, when her deadbeat dad suddenly reappears begging for help, she throws her better judgment out the window. But Cass’s family drama takes a back seat when a new client’s desperate search for her birth parents flips from happy to horrifying. The adoption investigation hits a dead end, so Cass gives her client a simple at-home DNA kit.

There’s a hurricane brewing over Beaufort, South Carolina. And in the calm before the storm, big-city lawyer Dean Lincoln finds himself defending Haley Finch, a beautiful young woman accused of murdering her older boyfriend. Her supposed motive? He’d just won big on the lottery—and then changed his will in her favor. In the South, with Haley’s estranged husband suspiciously missing for the past two years and their marital funds dwindling fast, that’s motive enough.

“Homecoming” takes us back to Ford County, the fictional setting of many of John Grisham’s unforgettable stories. Jake Brigance is back, but he’s not in the courtroom. He’s called upon to help an old friend, Mack Stafford, a former lawyer in Clanton, who three years earlier became a local legend when he stole money from his clients, divorced his wife, filed for bankruptcy, and left his family in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again—until now. Now Mack is back, and he’s leaning on his old pals, Jake and Harry Rex, to help him return. His homecoming does not go as planned.

What became of Mitch and Abby McDeere after they exposed the crimes of Memphis law firm Bendini, Lambert & Locke and fled the country? The answer is found in The Exchange, the riveting sequel to The Firm, the blockbuster thriller that launched the career of America’s favorite storyteller.

Mike and Rosie learn that their daughter's boyfriend has been arrested on suspicion of murdering his father. Bobby Fairchild claims to have found his father's body upon returning home from a date with Grace. The police, who found Bobby at the scene of the crime holding the murder weapon, contend that his parents' acrimonious divorce sent the boy over the edge. With their daughter as Bobby's only alibi, Mike and Rosie take the case and uncover a sex scandal that takes them down San Francisco's darkest alleys.

Running his own law firm is harder than Leland Munroe ever imagined, but he’s determined to make it work. Judy Reed, accused of killing her wealthy father, is just the kind of high-profile and high-paying client he needs to keep his firm afloat. Yet the deeper he digs, the more complex her case becomes. Nurse LaDonna Winters’s financial situation isn’t as ideal. Struggling to make ends meet, she can barely afford legal representation. But her case is compelling—accused of a crime at her hospital she insists she didn't commit, LaDonna is desperate to clear her name.

A taut thriller about two rural Minnesota towns locked in a deadly feud - and a teenage girl caught in the crossfire. In affluent Barron, a powerful and secretive scientific research corporation enriches its residents, while downriver in blue-collar St. Croix, victims of that company’s carcinogenic waste struggle to survive. The bad blood between the communities escalates into open warfare when the beautiful Ashlynn, daughter of the corporation’s president, is found shot dead - and a St. Croix girl, Olivia Hawk, is accused of the crime.

Barbara Holloway has a reputation for taking on the toughest cases - and winning them. But this time she's up against an unbeatable opponent - her father, the lawyer who taught her all she knows.

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.

Mike Daley doesn't go to confession much since he left the priesthood twenty years ago and became a lawyer, but that doesn't stop his old friend, Father Ramon Aguirre, from trying to get him there. "It wouldn't kill you to go to church once in a while," he tells Mike. But it does kill someone. For several months, a ruinous sexual harassment suit has been building against the San Francisco Catholic Archdiocese, and when the plaintiff's lawyer is found dead, an almost audible sigh of relief is heard.