Legal Suspense Thrillers

When a cop shoots down the son of a respected inner-city Baptist preacher, the community rises up in anger and demands to have the officer prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But there's something more than a call for justice at work here. There's a plot to bring down the city's police force through a conspiracy so vast and malicious that only Butch Karp, his wife, and his band of truth-seekers can untangle it.

How much will one man risk to defend another, when the truth lands him in prison...and the only evidence proving his innocence comes by a dream?

After a long career as one of DC’s most powerful litigators, Rob Jacobson is faced with the case of a lifetime: the former President of the United States—his childhood best friend—has been accused of murdering his mistress. Rob knows he’s the only one who can prove his friend’s innocence, but he is soon overwhelmed as he attempts to devise a strategy to defend an authoritative man with a taste for infidelity, serious anger issues, and unconventional sexual appetites.

On takeoff from Denver during a winter blizzard, an airliner piloted by veteran Captain Marty Mitchell overruns a commuter plane from behind. Bizarrely, the fuselage of the smaller aircraft is tenuously wedged onto the wing of his Boeing 757, leading Mitchell to an impossible life-or-death choice. Mitchell’s decision will land the former military pilot in the crosshairs of a viciously ambitious district attorney determined to send him to prison for doing his job.

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.

Uncommon Clay delves into the intriguing world of the Nordans, a deep-rooted family of talented yet cursed North Carolina potters. Judge Knott is filling in for another judge who suffered a mild stroke. When she decrees that the divorcing Nordan couple split their valuable earthenware collection, the husband winds up dead, in his own kiln! Many people have motives and the clay wheel swirls with suspects.

Killer Market takes the quintessential steel magnolia to the hub of North Carolina's massive furniture industry. Deborah soon gets caught up in the whirl of the International Home Furnishings Market and finds herself a suspect in a high-power murder case. The feisty judge must use her courtroom experience and intuitive skills to strip through layers of deception if she is to clear her own name. Maron draws from her own rural southern roots to craft her trademark authentic settings and characters.

Far from the neon glare of the Vegas Strip, attorney Piper Danes walks away from a hotshot law firm to work as a guardian ad litem (GAL). Piper was once a vulnerable youth herself, and a GAL gave her hope when she needed it most. Now she’s committed to paying it forward. Her latest case is unlike any other: fifteen-year-old Sophie Grace is the sole survivor of a gruesome family murder. Teaming up with the formidable Judge Hope Dawson and enigmatic Detective Lazarus Holloway, Piper delves into a world more sinister than she could have imagined.

Against a backdrop of Russian mobsters and corrupt lawyers, Butch and Marlene are on a mission to restore the system's lost dignity and bring the rapists to justice. All the while terrorists are at it again, planning to blow the roof off Times Square on New Year's Eve. Alas, the Karp family finds itself in lethal jeopardy, and to survive, they must team up and fight their greatest battle yet.

Mrs. Bentley has been arrested for murder. The evidence is overwhelming: arsenic she extracted from fly papers was in her husband's medicine, his food and his lemonade, and her crimes are being plastered across the newspapers. Even her lawyers believe she is guilty. But Roger Sheringham, the brilliant but outspoken young novelist, is convinced that there is too much evidence against Mrs. Bentley and sets out to prove her innocence.

Jack Ross loses his soul but finds redemption representing an evangelical African American preacher. Jack's downward spiral begins with his idealistic but doomed defense of his best friend and colleague. It becomes an existential crisis. His wife leaves. His partner is in alcohol rehab. Jack's struggle to reclaim his professional standing and self-respect is aided by a petty criminal and a hot young reporter. Jack sets out to right the wrongs done to his Christian-prophet client.

It is a small paper square with uneven edges, dark blue in color and bearing a smudged portrait of a long-dead king. It doesn't look like much to Brady Coyne, but the stamp known as the Dutch Blue Error is one of a kind - a philatelic freak worth at least one million dollars. It is the prize possession of Ollie Weston, a wheelchair-bound Boston banker, and it is valuable enough that for its sake, several good men will die.

Even the most incorruptible juror can be unwittingly influenced by others' opinions in the digital age, but more sinister forces are at work: Jury tampering has reached all-time highs. Unexpected verdicts are coming down more and more often, indicating that shadowy groups may be blackmailing jurors - and leaving the American justice system in shambles. Is impartiality even possible anymore?

At the start of a new century, a shocking murder transfixes Manhattan, forcing bitter rivals Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr to work together to save a man from the gallows. Just before Christmas 1799, Elma Sands slips out of her Quaker cousin’s boarding house—and doesn’t come home. Has she eloped? Run away? No one knows—until her body appears in the Manhattan Well. Her family insists they know who killed her. Handbills circulate around the city accusing a carpenter named Levi Weeks of seducing and murdering Elma. But privately, quietly, Levi’s wealthy brother calls in a special favor.

Jessica Ames is desperate. Her college-age son, Brandon, has been arrested for murder, and the evidence is stacked against him. His DNA matches the blood and skin found under the victim's fingernails, and the murder weapon was recovered near his apartment. Jessica turns to the only lawyer she knows for help. Nate Daniels is no criminal defense attorney; he's a highly successful corporate litigator. He also has unresolved feelings for Jessica.

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.

Jon Soliday is legal counsel to a powerful politician - also his childhood best friend - who is running for governor. The two have shared political success and undying loyalty. They also share a dark secret from the summer of 1979: a party that resulted in the death of a teenage girl. Soliday was implicated, but through his friend's political connections, escaped legal trouble.

Harper's uncle, Jack Calhoun, has been charged with murdering a priest. Jack has no idea if he killed the priest or not. All that he knows is that he woke up in the rectory, holding a knife, with a priest covered in blood at his feet. It soon becomes apparent that Jack is not who he seems. He's not the man who Harper grew up with. He's become something else. Somebody else.

An old house, a new lover, a fresh life for Dominick - or will the faith-driven doom it all? The past just won't go away. Dominick likes to idle there in history's comfortable remove, but when his mother dies and he meets the half sister he never knew he had, the past becomes more personal - and the present more dangerous. Dominick's perpetual peregrinations are interrupted by a visit to his newfound sibling's historic Hudson Valley estate, which is also home to a Wiccan coven.

The irrepressible, audacious defence barrister Horace Rumpole whose court scenes are proverbial, and whose home is ruled by Mrs Rumpole, is back in these short stories by John Mortimer. The much loved stories were adapted from his scripts for the hugely popular TV series of the same name.