3rd Degree


Book Description

In James Patterson's shockingly suspenseful #1 New York Times bestseller, one member of the Women's Murder Club is hiding a secret so dangerous that it could destroy them all. One of James Patterson's best loved heroines is about to die. Detective Lindsay Boxer is jogging along a beautiful San Francisco street when a fiery explosion rips through the neighborhood. When Lindsay plunges inside to search for survivors, she finds three people dead. A lost infant and a mysterious message at the scene leaves Lindsay and the San Francisco Police Department completely baffled. Then a prominent businessman is found murdered under bizarre circumstances, with another mysterious message left behind by the killer. Lindsay asks her friends Claire Washburn of the medical examiner's office, Assistant D.A. Jill Bernhardt, and Chronicle reporter Cindy Thomas to help her figure out who is committing these murders-and why they are intent on killing someone every three days. Even more terrifying, the killer has targeted one of the four friends who call themselves the Women's Murder Club. Which one will it be?




The Third Degree


Book Description

If you've ever seen an episode of Law and Order, you can probably recite your Miranda rights by heart. But you likely don't know that these rights had their roots in the case of a young Chinese man accused of murdering three diplomats in Washington DC in 1919. A frantic search for clues and dogged interrogations by gumshoes erupted in sensational news and editorial coverage and intensified international pressure on the police to crack the case. Part murder mystery, part courtroom drama, and part landmark legal case, The Third Degree is the true story of a young man's abuse by the Washington police and an arduous, seven-year journey through the legal system that drew in Warren G. Harding, William Howard Taft, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John W. Davis, and J. Edgar Hoover. The ordeal culminated in a sweeping Supreme Court ruling penned by Justice Louis Brandeis that set the stage for the Miranda warning many years later. Scott D. Seligman argues that the importance of the case hinges not on the defendant's guilt or innocence but on the imperative that a system that presumes one is innocent until proven guilty provides protections against coerced confessions. Today, when the treatment of suspects between arrest and trial remains controversial, when bias against immigrants and minorities in law enforcement continues to deny them their rights, and when protecting individuals from compulsory self-incrimination is still an uphill battle, this century-old legal spellbinder is a cautionary tale that reminds us how we got where we are today and makes us wonder how far we have yet to go.




Performing Murder


Book Description

The violent death of a famous actress rocks the rural Iowa town of Orney, where a Hollywood movie company is filming on location. Local newspaper reporter Tony Harrington is stunned by the murder, as he was one of the last people to see her alive. Tony finds himself further entwined in the case when it's learned the actress was seen riding in his car on the night she was killed, and when her former lover attacks him and his best friend. Soon Tony's world view is shattered when someone he loves is officially charged with the murder, and the evidence collected by the authorities is indisputable. As Tony desperately seeks an alternative solution to the case, he finds it may have ties to a family secret from thirty years in the past. As the investigation intensifies, so does the action, leaving a second person dead and a third lying on the ground with a bullet hole in his side. At the point where Tony is ready to give up and concede the unthinkable is true, a newfound love convinces him to dig deeper. Her strength, intelligence, and belief in Tony helps him cling to hope and begin to unravel the truth, right up until the murderer fights back, putting Tony in the greatest peril of his life. Join Tony as he races against time to save an innocent man, win a woman's heart, and stop a criminal genius from once again "performing murder."




Murder Most Austen


Book Description

"A dedicated Anglophile and Janeite, Elizabeth Parker is hoping the trip to the Jane Austen Festival in Bath will distract her from her lack of a job and her uncertain future with her boyfriend. On the plane ride, she and Aunt Winnie meet Professor Zackary Baines, a self-proclaimed expert on all things Austen. He claims that within each Austen novel there is another darker secondary story, usually involving sordid behavior. He claims to know the true cause of Austen's death, and it's a truth which will greatly outrage Austen fans. Elizabeth and Aunt Winnie don't take him or his findings seriously. But someone must, because during the costume ball, Baines is stabbed to death. Kiely expertly combines the wit and spunk of Austen's protagonists with a contemporary traditional mystery, creating an entertaining puzzle. Austen fans especially are in for a big treat"--




4th of July


Book Description

The world's bestselling detective series has never been more suspenseful. Trapped in deadly showdowns, courtroom trials, and dangerous secrets, the Women's Murder Club must fight for their lives. In a deadly late-night showdown, San Francisco police lieutenant Lindsay Boxer fires her weapon and sets off a dramatic chain of events that leaves a police force disgraced, a family destroyed, and Lindsay herself at the mercy of twelve jurors. During a break in the trial, she retreats to a picturesque town that is reeling from a string of grisly murders-crimes that bear a link to a haunting, unsolved case from her rookie years. Now, with her friends in the Women's Murder Club, Lindsay must battle for her life on two fronts: in a trial rushing to a climax, and against an unknown adversary willing to do anything to hide the truth about the homicides-including kill again?




Murder in Brentwood


Book Description

For audiences of the popular FX television series The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, based on Jeffrey Toobin's The Run of His Life and starring Cuba Gooding, Jr., John Travolta, David Schwimmer, and Courtney B. Vance. Named on Vogue Magazine's "American Crime Story Reading List" as one of the "eight definitive books on the trial of the century." Twenty years ago, America was captivated by the awful drama of the O.J. Simpson trial. The Simpson "Dream Team" legal defense had a seemingly impossible task: convincing a jury that their client was innocent of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. In order for O.J. Simpson to get away with murder, the defense attorneys had to destroy the reputation of Mark Fuhrman, a brilliant Los Angeles detective who was the lead on the murder scene and had collected overwhelming physical evidence against Simpson. Now Fuhrman tells his side of the story in the #1 New York Times bestseller Murder in Brentwood, a damning exposé that reveals why and how Simpson's prosecution was bungled. Fuhrman offers a sincere mea culpa for allowing his personal mistakes to become a focal point of the defense's strategy but also stands by the evidence he collected, writing: "One thing I will not apologize for is my policework on the O.J. Simpson case." With Fuhrman's own hand-drawn maps of the crime scene, his reconstruction of the murders, and interrogation transcripts, Murder in Brentwood is the book that sets the record straight about what really happened on June 12, 1994—and reveals why the O.J. Simpson trial was such a catastrophe.







Furious Hours


Book Description

This “superbly written true-crime story” (Michael Lewis, The New York Times Book Review) masterfully brings together the tales of a serial killer in 1970s Alabama and of Harper Lee, the beloved author of To Kill a Mockingbird, who tried to write his story. Reverend Willie Maxwell was a rural preacher accused of murdering five of his family members, but with the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative assassinated him at the funeral of his last victim. Despite hundreds of witnesses, Maxwell’s murderer was acquitted—thanks to the same attorney who had previously defended the reverend himself. Sitting in the audience during the vigilante’s trial was Harper Lee, who spent a year in town reporting on the Maxwell case and many more trying to finish the book she called The Reverend. Cep brings this remarkable story to life, from the horrifying murders to the courtroom drama to the racial politics of the Deep South, while offering a deeply moving portrait of one of our most revered writers.







Murder One


Book Description

Finalist for the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction: New York Times bestselling author Robert Dugoni delivers another gripping legal thriller in his popular David Sloane series. The case? Defending the woman he loves against a charge of murder. A year after the devastating murder of his wife, attorney David Sloane has returned to Seattle after three months in Mexico. At a black-tie dinner where he’s been persuaded to give the keynote address, Sloane reconnects with Barclay Reid, opposing counsel in his most prominent case. Barclay is suffering from her own personal tragedy—the death of her teenage daughter from a drug overdose. In the aftermath, Barclay has begun an intense crusade against the Russian drug traffickers she holds responsible for her daughter’s death, pursuing them with a righteousness that matches Sloane’s own zeal for justice. Despite their adversarial past, Sloane is drawn to Barclay and for the first time since his wife died, he finds himself beginning to have romantic feelings again. But when Barclay’s crusade stalls and a Russian drug dealer turns up dead, she stands accused of murder, and Sloane is her chosen defender. Amid the swirling media frenzy, in his first criminal case, Sloane finds himself once again in harm’s way, while mounting evidence suggests that Barclay is a woman with many secrets—and may not be quite as innocent as she seems. With his signature fast-paced, page-turning action and exhilarating plot twists, Robert Dugoni once again proves why he’s so often been named the heir to Grisham’s literary throne.