Are you looking for a fast-paced page-turner with realistic characters forced to make difficult decisions with far-reaching implications? Then you might like a Legal Thriller.
This page pulls together a selection of some of our most popular authors of legal fiction, and some of their most representative works. Click on the title of each book to be linked with the SWAN record to check the book's availability.
For more infomation, call the Reader's Services Desk at (708) 798-0121 ext. 232.
The Simple Truth
David Baldacci
A man wrongly convicted of murder appeals to the Supreme Court, but the clerk who opens his appeal is murdered in an apparent cover-up. 1998
Dark Justice
William Bernhardt
Lawyer Ben Kincaid matches wits with a woman district attorney during an eco-terrorism trial in the Pacific Northwest. Kincaid is defending an environmentalist accused of the murder of a logger. 1999
Judgment Calls
Alafair Burke
A seemingly simple, open-and-shut trial involving a brutal attack on a thirteen-year-old girl draws Deputy D.A. Samantha Kincaid into a complex and dangerous case that takes her on dark trail leading to a high-profile death penalty case, a prostitution ring of underage girls, and a potential serial killer. 2003
The Lincoln Lawyer
Michael Connelly
An attorney defending a man accused of a violent assault realizes there may be a connection to one of his previous cases that resulted in a client getting a life sentence. 2005
Temporary Sanity
Rose Connors
After leaving the District Attorney's office, Marty Nickerson tackles a difficult first case in her defense of a client who shot his son's presumed killer on television and refuses to enter in a plea of insanity, his only available means of defense. 2003
The Bone Vault
Linda A. Fairstein
When a recently deceased body is discovered in an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus during a donor gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Assistant DA Alex Cooper must infiltrate New York's museum society to catch a killer. 2003
High Crimes
Joseph Finder
A lawyer learns her husband has been living under a false identity for 13 years when he’s court-martialed for a massacre in an El Salvador village that he claims was the fault of his commanding officer. 1998
The Color of Law
Mark Gimenez
A partner at an elite Dallas law firm, Scott Fenney is forced to choose between his conscience and his wealthy, privileged lifestyle when he assigned to defend pro bono Shawanda Jones, a heroin-addicted prostitute. She is accused of murdering Clark McCall, the ne-er-do-well son of a millionaire Texas senator and presidential candidate. 2005
The Letter of the Law
Tim Green
After defense attorney Casey Jordan gets her client, a brilliant but arrogant professor, acquitted of the murder of a twenty-two-year-old law student, she discovers that not only is her client guilty but he may be responsible for a series of brutal crimes. She is forced to make a difficult choice between justice and the law. 2000
Hear No Evil
James Grippando
Jack Swyteck agrees to defend a woman accused of murdering her husband at Guantanamo Bay after she claims to be the adoptive mother of a son Jack never knew he had. 2004
The King of Lies
John Hart
Jackson Workman's life and legal practice are in shambles. When his father Ezra is murdered, the large fortune he left behind makes Workman not only a grieving son, but, along with his sister, a suspect in his father's murder. He must fight to save his sister, clear his name, regain his wife's love, and above all, redeem himself. 2006
The Quiet Game
Greg Iles
A former prosecutor who quit his job to write novels returns to his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi, after his wife’s death and becomes involved in investigating a 30-year-old unsolved murder. 1999
Cold Justice
Jonnie Jacobs
After the brutal murder of her best friend, which bears a startling resemblance to the victims of the Bayside Strangler, (who was recently executed), San Francisco lawyer Kali O'Brien fears that the wrong man was sentenced to death and must re-open a case thought to be solved in order to catch the real killer. 2002
Nothing but the Truth
John T. Lescroart
In an effort to save his wife Franny, lawyer Dismas Hardy investigates the murder of a woman thrown out of a window. The victim was his wife's friend and Franny has been jailed for refusing to reveal a secret which the other confided to her. 1999
Angle of Impact
Bonnie MacDougal
A Philadelphia lawyer learns that the helicopter crash that killed her client was no accident. 1998
Sleeping Beauty
Phillip Margolin
Author Miles Van Meter is on a book tour to promote his sensational bestseller, Sleeping Beauty, a true-crime account of the attack by a serial killer that left his twin sister, Casey, in a coma. Tonight the audience waits to hear Miles discuss recent developments in his sister's case -- unaware that pieces of this complex puzzle of violence, unknown even to the author, are about to be revealed. 2004
Most Wanted
Michelle Martinez
A federal prosecutor in New York happens upon a crime scene where a hotshot attorney was murdered and is determined to get the case. 2005
The Attorney
Steve Martini
A child-custody battle leads to murder in this mystery, starring lawyer Paul Madriani of San Diego. It happens when a woman demands a share of her parents' $87-million lottery win, or she will remove her child from their custody. 2000
Skinny-Dipping
Claire Matturro
A junior partner at a Florida law firm tries to figure why she was attacked and why a client died of poisoning. First in a series. 2004
The Zero Game
Brad Meltzer
Bored and disillusioned with their jobs as senior staffers to a respected congressman, Matthew Mercer and Harris Sandler become involved in the clandestine Zero Game, but when someone close to them turns up dead, they discover the sinister intent of the "game" and realize that they are intended to become the game's next victims. 2004
Presumption of Death
Perri O'Shaughnessy
Returning home to Monterey County to put her life in order and move in with Paul van Wagoner, attorney Nina Reilly is called upon in the case of her former assistant's son, who has been accused of murder in a disturbing arson case. 2003
Protect and Defend
Richard North Patterson
A nominee for Supreme Court Justice is drawn into the case of a teenage girl whose parents want to stop her from aborting a child with a severe birth defect. 2000
First Degree
David Rosenfelt
Irreverent lawyer Andy Carpenter must save the love of his life, lead P.I. Laurie Collins, when she's framed for the murder of a cop. 2003
Courting Trouble
Lisa Scottoline
Lawyer Anne Murphy is smart, gorgeous, and young, the redheaded rookie at the Philadelphia law firm of Rosato & Associates. She leaves town for the Fourth of July weekend to prepare for a high-profile trial, but when she buys her morning newspaper, her own photo is plastered all over the front page. And the headline -- LAWYER MURDERED -- supposedly refers to her. Anne sets out to find her killer, playing dead in order to stay alive. 2002
Incriminating Evidence
Sheldon Siegel
Defense lawyer Mike Daley reluctantly takes the case when Prentice Gates, the San Francisco district attorney and a leading candidate for California attorney general, wakes up in his hotel room after spending the night in an armchair and finds a dead male prostitute on the bed. Even though they despise each other, Daley begins to believe Gates may actually be innocent. Will he be able to clear his client? 2001
Final Witness
Simon Tolkien
A teenage boy witnesses his mother's murder and accuses his father's personal assistant of arranging the murder so she could marry his father. 2002
Personal Injuries
Scott Turow
A personal injury lawyer implicated for bribery agrees to help a determined U.S. Attorney follow a trail of corruption to the top. 1999
A Wrongful Death
Kate Wilhelm
Barbara Holloway becomes the prime suspect in a high-profile kidnapping case involving a young boy, the grandson of a wealthy family who accuses Barbara of aiding in his disappearance. 2007