Legal Thriller Crime Fiction

Former Wall Street whiz and current convict Mickey Steinberg is nearing the end of his three-year sentence at Yankton - the cushy country club prison where he's enjoyed celebrity status - and he's ready to get out and get back on top. He doesn't have the resources he once did, but he's already hatched a new plan to sell a forgery of a stolen Van Gogh painting through the shady underground art market. He and his new partner, the smooth-talking Paul Reece, have a mark in mind: The sleazy con-man art dealer who swooped in on Mickey's beloved ex-wife after he was locked up. But with his old partner, Jack Grass, hell-bent on revenge and his pre-prison life closed to him, it won't be easy.

James Drinker is a bit of an oddball. A funny-looking, geeky loner, he walks into Jason Kolarich’s office one day with a preemptive concern: two women have recently been murdered, seemingly by the same killer, and Drinker thinks he will be the police’s main suspect. One woman was his ex-girlfriend, he says, and the other was a friend. He’s the only link between the victims and he has no alibi for the night of either murder - surely the police will realize it soon. Believing he’s the target of a frame-up, Drinker hires Kolarich for his defense. Something about James Drinker seems off from the start, but Kolarich doesn’t give it too much thought. Until another murder occurs....

Originally published by Pocket Books as Court of Honor, this classic by Wood - the basis for the 1995 film Broken Trust starring Tom Selleck - is is the story of a sitting judge who finds himself in a dangerous position when he participates in a sting operation investigating fellow judges on the take.

Courting Death finds Melanie Wilkerson (from Cotton, book two of the Clarkeston Chronicles) and Arthur Hughes working uncomfortably together in the chambers of a famous federal judge. While Melanie neglects her duties as a law clerk to investigate the mysterious death of a young woman in the courthouse five years earlier, Arthur wades through the horrific habeas corpus appeals of two prisoners: an infamous serial killer and a pathetic child murderer.

Ry Slaight was a rebellious cadet who almost destroyed West Point when he exposed and solved the murder of a gay cadet in 1969. Now, nearly three decades later, Slaight's been promoted to Lieutenant General and appointed Superintendent of the Military Academy. When a female cadet dies during parade, an autopsy establishes that she had sex with multiple partners the night before. Was she the victim of a gang rape? Was there a cadet orgy? Don't ask. Don't tell.

Prosecutor Elsie Arnold loves her small-town home in the Ozark hills, but she's been waiting for a murder to come along and make her career. So when a body is found under a bridge, throat cut, Elsie jumps at the chance to work on the case, even if it's alongside the brash new chief assistant, Chuck Harris - and her latest flame, Detective Bob Ashlock.

In a life of crime, loyalty means everything - even if you don’t always see eye to eye. But when Vaughn Sadler speaks up to get Franny Doyle sent down, he’s broken every rule in the book to win checkmate. Holed up in prison, Franny has more than one score to settle - but she’s starting with Vaughn. Because you don’t grass on your own, no matter what. And though she may be behind bars, she will get revenge - whatever the cost.

Corporate lawyer Elizabeth Carlyle is under a lot of pressure. Her prestigious New York law firm is working on the most high-stakes case in company history defending a prominent bank. When Elizabeth gets the news that one of her junior associates has lost his phone - and the secret documents that were on it - she needs help. Badly. Enter ex-CIA officer Valencia Walker, a high-priced fixer who gets called in when governments, corporations, and plutocrats need their problems solved discretely. But things get complicated when the missing phone is retrieved....

Winner of six Lambda Literary awards, the Henry Rios mystery series is iconic and Michael Nava has been hailed by The New York Times as “one of our best” writers. Here, Rios delves deeply into his Latino identity as he defends a young man charged with assassinating a prominent Los Angeles Latino politician. The San Francisco Chronicle hailed the novel and its author: “A beautifully conceived but gritty novel.... Nava writes the kind of small, clean, powerful novels that build in emotional power almost invisibly, leaving us breathless at the end.”

Two murders. Two trials. And two kids who were not exactly guilty. The odd part is that the defendant in the first case is the lawyer in the second, which occurs in the same courtroom against the same prosecutor 15 years later. When young defense attorney David Stillman takes an alcohol-fueled hiatus from his law practice, he meets Michaela, an exotic older woman who gradually pulls the story of David's haunted and past out of him as a romance develops. The relation by David of the childhood saga of he and his violent group of teenage friends proves cathartic.

When it comes to establishing reasonable doubt in the minds of a New York jury, defense attorney Michael Roehmer is the best in the business - and no one knows this better than rape victim Lisa Altman. She sat helplessly in the courtroom as Roehmer, smoothly and without mercy, shot gaping holes in her testimony. As a result, the man who brutally assaulted her walked free. Right and wrong, guilt and innocence, mean nothing to Roehmer. For him, winning is everything. Now Altman is sitting at a different table: Her rapist has been savagely murdered and she’s accused of the heinous crime.

From Linda Fairstein, author of Cold Hit, comes this newest Alexandra Cooper mystery, a richly nuanced synthesis of history and suspense. Fairstein's real-life experience as head of the New York district attorney's Sex Crime Unit gives her fiction an eerie ring of truth.

A simple domestic abuse case turns deadly when the alleged abuser is killed and Stephanie Ann "Sam" McRae's client disappears. When a friend asks Sam to find Melanie Hayes, the Maryland attorney is drawn into a complex case of murder and identity theft that has her running from the mob, breaking into a strip club and forming a shaky alliance with an offbeat private investigator to discover the truth about Melanie and her ex-boyfriend.

Lester is a lawyer for a prestigious law firm in New York that represents some of New York City’s most wealthy citizens, including Hiram W. Holladay, a Wall Street tycoon. When Mr. Holladay is found dead at his desk from a knife wound to the neck, all evidence points to his daughter, Miss Frances Holladay, as the perpetrator. Courtroom drama, a kidnapping, and a fraught pursuit overseas follow this shocking crime in an ingenious detective story sure to delight mystery fans.

Paul Batista, one of the country's foremost defense lawyers, has written the ultimate legal thriller with murder in its heart. When Tom Perini, a legendary Heisman Trophy winner turned criminal lawyer, is found brutally murdered in Central Park, his widow, Julie, not only must unravel the mysteries of her husband's secret double life, but survive long enough to discover the truth. A thriller and courtroom drama of corruption and greed so authentic it reads like tomorrow's headlines.

Cooper Dixon should have it made, with a beautiful wife, Kelly, two great kids, and a thriving business, the Tower Agency. But for Cooper, things aren’t turning out how he expected. He and Kelly are caught in a never-ending cycle of arguments - Cooper can’t remember the last time they had sex. And Cooper’s troubled business partner, Gates Ballenger, is scheming to sell the Tower Agency out from under him. When a gang of criminals is hired by a mysterious client to kidnap Kelly and set up Cooper to take the fall, Cooper’s life goes completely off the rails.

Alex has been an executioner for most of his adult life. He has experienced the final moments before life is drained from hardened criminals, though he has never yet executed a woman. Following the case of Sara Grainger, Alex is shocked to find that regardless of a seeming lack of evidence, the mother and father of the victim are able to buy a result. Alice, a nurse in the hospital, knows that Sara is innocent. To all intent and purposes, the accident was a quirk of fate. However, will the execution take place? Will there be a reprieve? Will justice be served?

A serial killer the likes of whom hasn't been seen in centuries. A pretender who has outdone the master. Fifty planets. The dead are screaming for vengeance and only Rivka and her team can hear their cries. The Singularity. The Magistrate and her crew. How many more must die before the killer can be brought to justice? The battle of wits has begun, and only one can survive. Win or die trying. Rivka has to dig deeper than ever before into her investigative skills to figure out who's next and how to stop the one masquerading as . . . Jack the Ripper.

Emma’s husband is in prison. Emma’s husband claims he is innocent. Emma’s husband is a liar. And he’s not done with her yet.

Andy Gibbons had been sentenced to life in prison for a crime he didn't commit. After 10 years inside, he had abandoned all hope, and resigned himself to the fact that he would remain there for the rest of his life. Judgment Call is a full-length audiobook, a crime suspense-thriller about a corrupt organization with a sinister agenda that exploits every weakness and every dark corner of the fallible justice system. This fast-paced suspense-thriller is the first audiobook in J C Ryan's Exonerated Series.