Legal Mystery Thriller Suspense

“Patterson and Lupica make a great team” (Carl Hiaasen) who get “deep into the lives of strong women” (Louise Penny) and Jane Smith is their greatest creation—a badass lawyer with a year to live. “Jane Smith is the best character we’ve ever created. Bar none.” —James Patterson...

Lisa and Joe Stone, married for 20 years and sole partners in their small law firm in Henry County, Virginia, handle less-than-glamorous cases: domestic disputes, personal injury settlements, or a plethora of complaints from their cantankerous client Lettie VanSandt. When she dies in a freakish incident, the Stones think it's within the realm of possibility that she was cooking meth in her trailer. But details soon emerge that lead them to question how accidental Lettie's demise actually was.

It's been two years since Nora Carleton left the job she loved at the US Attorney's Office to become lead counsel at Saugatuck Associates, the world's largest hedge fund. The career change also meant a change of scenery, relocating her to Westport, Connecticut, fifty miles north of New York City. But it was worth it to get her daughter, Sophie, away from the city. Plus, she likes the people she works with. Especially Helen, who recruited Nora because of her skills as an investigator.

After many years working on some of the toughest felony cases in New York, prosecutor Butch Karp takes on one of the most notorious homicide cases in modern history when the US Congress invites him to become legal counsel to the Congressional committee charged to reinvestigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Teaming up with his crime-fighting wife, Marlene, and two loyal assistants, Karp knows the only way to determine what occurred is to let the facts and the evidence lead inexorably to a just result.

Mitch Arno always meant bad news for the coastal town of Folsum, Oregon. When they ran him out of town 17 years ago, he left behind a wife with two daughters and a family that never wanted to see him again. When he returns, he brings trouble in the form of a lot of suspicious money. As Barbara attempts to counsel Mitch's wife about the money, a second form of trouble arrives: Mitch's corpse.

Horace Rumpole - cigar-smoking, claret-drinking, Wordsworth-spouting defender of some unlikely clients - often speaks of the great murder trial which revealed his talents as an advocate and made his reputation down at the Bailey when he was still a young man. Now, for the first time, the sensational story of the Penge Bungalow Murders case is told in full: how, shortly after the war, Rumpole took on the seemingly impossible task of defending young Simon Jerold.

Bodily Harm opens with a big win for Sloane and his new partner, Tom Pendergrass, in a medical malpractice case centered on the death of a child. But on the heels of this seeming victory, an unlikely character – toy designer Kyle Horgan – comes forward to tell Sloane that he’s gotten it all wrong. Horgan’s the one who’s truly responsible for the little boy’s death and others – not the pediatrician Sloane has just proven guilty.

Barbara Holloway is a trial lawyer who tends to take on difficult cases, but this time it seems there's no defense at all. It appears that Vinny Jessup died when his car rolled over on a bad curve on Lookout Mountain. Then the sheriff finds the gunshot wound. With a large insurance policy as her motive, could his much younger wife have staged the death?

Federal Judge Patrick O’Shea is found swinging from his courtroom chandelier clad only in his robe. Everyone wanted him dead. FBI task force officer Katie O’Connor and her teamwork with the FBI and others to untangle the ever-growing lists of suspects including his estranged wife and judicial colleague.

The governor of North Carolina has appointed Deborah to a judicial seat in the District Court Division. On her weekends, the fledgling judge has been helping an all-woman building crew complete a home for a needy single mother. Her attempts to gain positive P.R. go awry when her niece is found battered and half-naked in the partially completed home, with Deborah's own bloody hammer lying nearby.

A dead man in the kitchen, gas fumes permeate the house, a duck seems to be drowning in the fishbowl, but it didn't die. Maybe that fact has something to do with murder? John L. Witherspoon, a wealthy patrician, is loath to let his daughter marry Marvin Adams, the son of a convicted murderer, something Marvin's mother managed to keep a secret - until now. To set the love-struck lass straight, Witherspoon engages Perry Mason to weigh the 20-year-old evidence that sent Marvin's father to the gallows, and prove that the young man is kin to the murdering kind.

In 1966 in Pulaski, Tennessee, Bocephus Haynes watched in horror as his father was brutally murdered by 10 local members of the Ku Klux Klan. As an African American lawyer practicing in the birthplace of the Klan years later, Bo has spent his life pursuing justice in his father's name. But when Andy Walton, the man believed to have led the lynch mob 45 years earlier, ends up murdered in the same spot as Bo's father, Bo becomes the prime suspect.

After a fallout with his business partner and a breakup with his girlfriend, lawyer Sam Johnstone thinks a long vacation might be just what the doctor ordered. Before he can quit town, Sam gets a call from Lucy Beretta, the wife of the missing local college president. With a shocking accusation against an acquaintance and a plea for protection, Lucy derails Sam's plans for a quiet escape. But when her alleged attacker turns up dead, Lucy is charged with his murder - and Sam is appointed to represent her.

Hailey Dean, the prosecutor who's never lost a case, heads to Savannah as an expert witness on the sensational Julie Love-Adams murder trial, but she soon finds herself embroiled in a mystery and an unexpected love affair. At the baggage claim, Hailey is greeted by the handsome Lieutenant Chase Billings. On their way to her hotel, they hear an all-points bulletin for a murder that has just been committed.

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.

Appearing before the Senate Select Committee on Eastern European crime, Josie Bates testifies passionately about the brutal Albanian blood feud that has sent Hannah into hiding with Billy Zuni and Archer on a quest to find them. While Senator Patriota, the man sure to be the next president of the United States, promises his patronage, Josie isn't convinced he was even listening - but someone was.

Down on his luck after a string of lost cases and a recent divorce, personal injury lawyer Matt Taylor hopes his next trial will be an easy win. But when he meets a devastatingly injured young man desperate for help, Matt finds himself embroiled in an impossible lawsuit against Salvatore Conte, a powerful lawyer with sinister connections. Despite all warnings, Matt courageously pulls out all the stops to uncover the truth and right a horrific legal wrong.

In the follow-up to best-selling Blood Defense, Samantha is hired as the legal advocate for Cassie Sonnenberg after a brutal stabbing left her father and brother dead, and her mother barely clinging to life. It's a tabloid-ready case that has the nation in an uproar - and Sam facing her biggest challenge yet. Why did Cassie survive? Is she hiding something?

Attorney Dani Rollins is bullish in the courtroom - pushing judges and prosecutors to their limits in defense of the innocent. So when she meets Teddy Thorne, a mentally challenged teen accused of selling drugs, Dani knows she’s got this in the bag. She can easily settle the case with a couple of court appearances. But when prosecutors move for an adult felony conviction, Dani suspects Teddy’s being used as a pawn in a sinister game. As the case moves forward, Dani is certain the judge and district attorney’s office have motivations beyond the crime.

Having abandoned corporate law, David Adams is now the voice of justice for the city of Austin’s vulnerable outcasts. His new client is Parker Barnes, a trembling twelve-year-old runaway and foster-care poster boy arrested for petty theft. Dealt a rough hand in life, he reminds David of his own childhood. This should be a simple, if heartbreakingly familiar, case. Until the FBI muscles in. Parker is also a suspect in the murder of a federal witness. No matter how desperate Parker’s denial, David fears there’s so much more to the kid’s hard-luck story than he’s letting on.