I grew up watching Perry Mason on TV and have always enjoyed mysteries with a legal theme, what has become known as the legal thriller. My affection for this genre only increased when I became a lawyer and, later, a trial judge. I especially appreciate a novel that accurately depicts what lawyers and judges say and do and that highlights the tension between law and justice. Not surprisingly, that has been my goal for the four legal thrillers I have written.
This one will always have a special place in my heart because it inspired me to try my hand at writing fiction. In my mind, it stands alone at the top of this genre. Why?
First, the premise: the tables are turned on a prosecutor when he finds himself charged with murder. Second, the story is told in the first person present. This gives the narration a sense of both intimacy and immediacy. Third, the prosecutor is the narrator and never reveals whether he is guilty, letting the reader weigh the evidence to reach his or her own conclusion. Fourth, Turow nails it when it comes to authenticity.
The dialogue and actions of the lawyers seem realistic, and the legal proceedings are accurate, making the story more believable. Finally, the legal process was properly followed, and a verdict was entered, but was justice done?
Rusty Sabich is a prosecuting lawyer in Chicago who enters a nightmare world when Carolyn, a beautiful attorney with whom he has been having an affair, is found raped and strangled. He stands accused of the crime.
This 'insider' book by a Chicago lawyer was one of the great novels of the 1980s, selling more than nine million copies, and was made into a famous film starring Harrison Ford. It's a supremely suspenseful and compelling courtroom drama about ambition, weakness, hypocrisy and American justice.
If Presumed Innocent inspired me to try my hand at writing fiction, this novel inspired me to become a lawyer, mostly because of the depiction of Atticus Finch. He is the epitome of the noble, honorable lawyer, using his considerable skills to represent a black man accused of the sexual assault of a white woman in 1930s Alabama.
His humanity and integrity are on full display as he faces professional ruin, social ostracization, and physical danger for his defense of the man, all while trying to raise two children as a single parent. Adherence to the law does not result in justice for his client, but Atticus’ faith in the law and the courts never wavers. The injustice pricks the reader's conscience, though, and I took some satisfaction in the fact that the person who did his best to corrupt the proceedings receives a measure of extra-judicial justice himself.
'Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'
Atticus Finch gives this advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of this classic novel - a black man charged with attacking a white girl. Through the eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Lee explores the issues of race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s with compassion and humour. She also creates one of the great heroes of literature in their father, whose lone struggle for justice pricks the conscience of a town steeped…
After solving her first case, private eye Siobhan O’Brien is hired by Phillip Ahn, an octogenarian billionaire with his own personal island in the Pacific Northwest. Ahn, a genius in artificial intelligence, swears that Duke, his youngest child and only son, is an impostor. Is Ahn crazy, or is Duke…
Grisham is the undisputed king of the legal thriller. Of all his novels, my favorite is his first. The story is set in a small southern town and centers on a white lawyer defending a black man (a la To Kill a Mockingbird). However, the lawyer, Jake, is not as noble as Atticus, as he is more motivated by personal ambition. And unlike Atticus’ client, his client is clearly guilty of murder, though the circumstances (the accused killed the men who brutally raped his young daughter) make him sympathetic.
There is an abundance of stereotypes here, including the Jewish lawyer sent by the NAACP, the angry Ku Klux Klan members, and the Ivy League law student who comes to help, but Grisham somehow makes it work. In the end, the reader, just like the jury, must choose between the law and their sense of justice.
______________________________ THE MULTI-MILLION COPY BESTSELLER
John Grisham's first and most shocking novel, adapted as a film starring Samuel L. Jackson and Matthew McConaughey
When Carl Lee Hailey guns down the violent racists who raped his ten-year-old daughter, the people of the small town of Clanton, Mississippi see it as justice done, and call for his acquittal.
But when extremists outside Clanton - including the KKK - hear that a black man has killed two white men, they invade the town, determined to destroy anything and anyone that opposes their sense of justice. A national media circus descends on Clanton.
Connally is not a lawyer, but he does a great job of accurately portraying the nitty gritty of the practice of street law, where the clients are usually on the lower economic rung of society. Mikey Haller is a lawyer who practices law from the back seat of a Lincoln Town Car, and these are his typical clients. Haller is a likable, memorable character who can sometimes sail close to the wind but has a solid inner moral compass.
In this novel, the first in the series, Haller takes on the defense of a rich playboy type. While he is happy to have a good fee, and it looks like he may, for a change, have an innocent client, things get complicated quickly, and Haller finds himself facing an ethical dilemma. How he resolves the conflict between his professional duty and his individual moral compass is clever and entertaining. And if it is a bit in the grey area ethically, it is nonetheless very satisfying.
They're called Lincoln Lawyers: the bottom of the legal food chain, the criminal defence attorneys who operate out of the back of a Lincoln car, travelling between the courthouses of Los Angeles county to take whatever cases the system throws in their path.
Mickey Haller has been in the business a long time, and he knows just how to work it, how to grease the right wheels and palms, to keep the engine of justice working in his favour. When a Beverly Hills rich boy is arrested for brutally beating a woman, Haller has his first high-paying client in years.…
When sixteen-year-old Ashlee Sutton's home life falls apart, she is beset by a rare mental illness that makes her believe she's clairvoyant. While most people scoff at her, she begins demonstrating an uncanny knack for sometimes predicting the future, using what could either be pure luck or something more remarkable.…
I liked the legal and ethical issues raised in this story. Specifically, when should an accused be relieved of responsibility for his crime because of a mental illness? Martin Vail is a flashy, cocky defense attorney who is appointed to represent Aaron, a soft-spoken, well-mannered young man who seems incapable of the brutal, sadistic murder with which he is charged. The problem is that the evidence against him is overwhelming.
Vail becomes convinced that Aaron suffers from multiple personality disorder and that his alter-ego, “Roy,” of whom Aaron is unaware, is the real killer. But Aaron and Roy inhabit the same body. If Roy is guilty, isn’t Aaron guilty as well? It is an ethical and legal dilemma for Vail. To save Aaron and get him the help he needs, Vail must trick Roy into showing himself at trial so the jury can see him, too. And he succeeds in dramatic fashion. Or did he? The twist at the end turned me completely around as to whether justice was done in the case.
Martin Vail, Chicago's most brilliant lawyer, has been set up by his enemies to defend a case he cannot win. Young Aaron Stampler was caught red-handed after a murder that had the city reeling. He looks bound to fry, but he swears he's innocent. In a desperate gamble for justice, Vail must reach deep into the recesses of a killer's mind, to flush out a monster of infinite cunning and evil. Explosive, haunting and brilliantly suspenseful, Primal Fear is a truly terrifying read.
Ted Stevens is a trial attorney whose drinking problem and impending divorce have sent him on a downward spiral. His appointment as defense counsel in a high-profile murder case seems to offer a chance at redemption.
But there’s a problem. The victim was not only a former client but also Ted's secret lover. This information would be helpful to his client, but if he revealed it, he would become a suspect.
Buried Secrets. A web of deceit, betrayal, and danger. Can she survive her fight for justice and truth? Laura thought she knew everything about her late husband before he died. Now, her life and the lives of those she loves are in danger. As Laura delves into his previous role…
In the first century, Rome’s celebrated love poet Ovid finds himself in exile, courtesy of an irate Emperor, in the far-flung town of Tomis. Appalled at being banished to a barbarous region at the very edge of the Empire, Ovid soon discovers that he has a far more urgent -…
