Lawyers book series in reading order

by Sara Woods

by Ed McBain

by John Mortimer

by C.J. Sansom

by Caro Fraser

by James Grippando

by Tony Dunbar

by Greg Iles

by John Grisham

by Paul Levine

by C.S. Challinor

by Michael Connelly

by Elizabeth Linington / Dell Shannon

by David Rosenfelt

by John Grisham

by William Bernhardt

by Judith Van Gieson

Erle Stanley Gardner

152 books• 8 series

Erle Stanley Gardner (July 17, 1889 to March 11, 1970) was an American lawyer and author of the Perry Mason legal detective stories. The catalogue opens in 1933 with The Case of the Velvet Claws and The Case of the Sulky Girl, followed by The Case of the Curious Bride and The Case of the Howling Dog in 1934, and lists 152 books in all. Other Gardner series include Donald Lam & Bertha Cool, Doug Selby, Gramp Wiggens and Terry Clane. Gardner also wrote non-fiction, mostly accounts of travels through Baja California and elsewhere in Mexico. Pseudonyms included A. A. Fair and Carleton Kendrake, and at the time of death Gardner was the best-selling American author of the 20th century.

Sara Woods was the pen name of Lana Hutton Bowen-Judd (1922-1985), a British mystery writer who also published as Anne Burton, Mary Challis and Margaret Leek. Antony Maitland recurs across the catalogue, with lawyers and legal settings among the subjects. 55 books appeared between 1961 and 1987, from Bloody Instructions (1961) to Naked Villainy (1987). Jeremy Locke, Richard Trenton and Stephen Marryat head further series. Output peaked in the 1980s, at a median 192 pages.

John Grisham

65 books• 11 series

Legal thrillers are the core of John Grisham's work. Grisham is an American writer, lawyer and former politician, born in 1955, who studied at Mississippi State University and took a law degree from the University of Mississippi in 1981. The catalogue holds 65 books, running from A Time to Kill (1989) through The Firm, The Pelican Brief and The Client to Shaken (2026). Series include Jake Brigance, Mitch McDeere, Camino Island, Rogue Lawyer and Theodore Boone. The American Academy of Achievement credits Grisham with 37 consecutive number-one fiction bestsellers and 300 million copies sold.

William G. Tapply, born in 1940 and died in 2009, was an American writer who published more than 40 books and lived his whole life in New England, working as a high school teacher and a college professor. Brady Coyne, a Boston lawyer who investigates, carries the mysteries he is known for, and Stoney Calhoun heads a second series. Fly fishing, one of Tapply's own pastimes, fills much of his non-fiction. Forty-seven titles span Death at Charity's Point (1984) to The Nomination (2011).

Sir John Mortimer (1923-2009) practised as a barrister in Britain and wrote plays, screenplays and fiction. Horace Rumpole, the barrister of Rumpole of the Bailey, is the creation Mortimer is known for, and the Rumpole short stories were worked up from episodes of the television series Mortimer wrote himself. Forty-three titles are catalogued, from Charade (1947) to Forever Rumpole (2011), with the Rapstone Chronicles alongside the Rumpole books and London courtrooms and English politics across the subject list.

Ed McBain

127 books• 7 series

Ed McBain is the pen name under which Evan Hunter, born Salvatore Albert Lombino (October 15, 1926 – July 6, 2005), published the 87th Precinct police procedurals. Cop Hater, The Mugger and The Pusher, all dated 1956, are early entries in the listing, and Steve Carella and the imaginary city of Isola appear among the subjects. Matthew Hope is a second series character. Under the Evan Hunter name, the author wrote The Blackboard Jungle, a semi-autobiographical novel filmed in 1955, and the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963).

Michael Connelly

60 books• 10 series

Michael Connelly is an American crime novelist, born July 21, 1956. The catalogue lists 60 Connelly books, running from The Black Echo (1992) to Ironwood (2026). LAPD detective Harry Bosch and defence attorney Mickey Haller are the recurring leads, and the listed series include Bosch Universe, Lincoln Lawyer and Safe Man. The Black Echo won the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Clint Eastwood directed and starred in a 2002 film of Blood Work. Subject headings cover police procedurals, legal fiction, serial murder and Los Angeles.

Greg Iles

19 books• 4 series

Suspense set largely in Mississippi is Greg Iles's territory, above all in the Penn Cage novels, which take a lawyer through buried family secrets and murder. Iles's 19 catalogued books open with Spandau Phoenix (1993) and close with Cemetery Road (2019), taking in the Penn Cage and Mississippi sequences and a set of standalone thrillers. The catalogue is listed as likely complete.

James Grippando writes legal thrillers set largely in Miami, with the defence lawyer Jack Swyteck at the centre. The Pardon (1994) opens a catalogue of 36 books that reaches The Right to Remain in 2026, alongside standalone novels, novellas and plays. Missing persons, suspense and the work between attorney and client supply the plots.

C.J. Sansom (Christopher John Sansom, 9 December 1952 to 27 April 2024) was a British writer of historical crime novels, above all the Matthew Shardlake series, whose subjects include lawyers and London. Shardlake, a TV series adapted from the novel Dissolution (2003), began streaming on Disney+ within a week of Sansom's death. Winter in Madrid (2006) is a spy novel and Dominion is alternate history. Awards include the 2005 Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, the 2013 Sidewise Award and the 2022 Cartier Diamond Dagger. The listing also carries Medieval Murderers volumes.

Martin Edwards is a crime writer who took a first in law at Balliol College, Oxford, trained as a solicitor in Leeds, moved to Liverpool on qualifying in 1980 and became a partner at Mace and Jones in 1984. Harry Devlin, Lake District Mysteries and Rachel Savernake are the series. Edwards belongs to the Murder Squad collective, chairs the nominations sub-committee for the CWA Diamond Dagger and became Archivist of the Crime Writers Association in 2007. Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife (2025) is the newest title.

Robert K. Tanenbaum was an American trial attorney who also served as mayor of Beverly Hills. The Butch Karp and Marlene Ciampi legal thrillers are his main sequence, catalogued under public prosecutors, women lawyers, murder trials and New York City. Tanenbaum's 34 books run from Badge of the Assassin (1979) and No Lesser Plea (1987) through Depraved Indifference (1989) and Justice Denied (1994) to That Day in Dallas (2025), and the catalogue also holds non-fiction.

Jane Langton (1922–2018) wrote children's literature and mystery novels, and illustrated her own books. Two sequences carry most of the work: the Homer Kelly mysteries, built on a recurring detective of that name, and the Hall Family Chronicles, which run to magic and fairy tale. Thirty-four books are catalogued, from The Majesty of Grace (1961) to The Dragon Tree (2008), with Massachusetts and Cambridge among the settings, at a median length of 252 pages.

Caro Fraser (1953 to 12 April 2020) was a British novelist and the daughter of George MacDonald Fraser, creator of The Flashman Papers. Born in Carlisle, Fraser grew up in Glasgow and later on the Isle of Man. Fraser worked as an advertising copywriter and then as a commercial and maritime lawyer before writing professionally from 1992. The catalogue lists 17 books from The Pupil (1994) to A Touch of Silk (2020), including the Caper Court series, with subject tags on lawyers, legal stories and England.

Paul Madriani, a lawyer working in California, is the recurring figure in Steve Martini's legal thrillers. The Simeon Chamber (1988) opens the catalogue and Compelling Evidence (1992) starts the Madriani run, which continues through The Judge (1996), The Attorney (2000) and The Jury (2001) to Blood Flag in 2016. Eighteen books are catalogued, and nothing later than 2016 is listed.

Scott Turow

20 books• 4 series

Scott Turow writes legal fiction set largely in the invented Kindle County. The Kindle County Legal Thrillers, featuring Rusty Sabich, anchor a catalogue of 20 books that starts with One L (1977), a title tagged to Harvard Law School, and reaches Presumed Guilty (2025). Non-fiction and standalone novels fill out the list. Lawyers, legal stories and missing persons are the recurring subjects.

Legal thrillers make up most of Paul Levine's work. Jake Lassiter, a former football player turned Miami lawyer, carries fifteen of the 28 catalogued books, starting with To Speak for the Dead (1990). Levine also wrote the four Solomon vs. Lord novels in the mid-2000s and the Einstein-Chaplin books, which draw on the friendship between Albert Einstein and Charlie Chaplin. Miami, murder trials and lawyers fill the subject tags, and Midnight Patriots (2026) is his newest title.

James Scott Bell is a novelist and a writing instructor. Legal thrillers dominate a catalogue of 91 books published between 1988 and 2025, covering the Mike Romeo, Ty Buchanan, Trials of Kit Shannon and Mallory Caine, Zombie-at-Law series. Lawyers, Los Angeles and Christian suspense recur as subjects, alongside a line of books on authorship and craft technique. The run opens with The Night Carl Sagan Stepped on My Cat (1988).

Cyril Hare was the pseudonym of Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark, an English barrister and judge who lived from 1900 to 1958 and wrote crime fiction on the side. The legal world runs through the books, Tragedy at Law (1942) among them. Inspector Mallett and the lawyer Francis Pettigrew head the two series and meet in a third. Thirteen titles are catalogued, from Tenant for Death (1937) to the Best Detective Stories collection of 1959.

Roy Lewis writes English detective fiction across three series. Arnold Landon is an archaeologist and antiquarian, Eric Ward works as a private investigator, and Inspector John Crow heads the police novels; standalone titles, short stories and non-fiction fill the rest. A Lover Too Many (1969), Error of Judgment (1971) and The Woods Murder (1971) are among the early books, and the catalogue reaches 78 titles by 2026 at a median 229 pages. Murder investigation in England is the constant.

William Deverell

22 books• 1 series

Arthur Beauchamp, a lawyer, carries William Deverell's legal mysteries. Deverell, born in 1937, is a Canadian criminal lawyer and civil liberties activist, and the debut novel Needles (1979) drew on that legal work and won the Seal First Novel Award. Trial of Passion took the Hammett Prize and the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel in 1998, and April Fool won the Arthur Ellis again in 2003. Twenty-two catalogued books reach The Long-Shot Trial in 2024, with British Columbia and murder trials as recurring ground.

Gianrico Carofiglio

11 books• 2 series

Gianrico Carofiglio, born in 1961, worked as an anti-Mafia judge in Bari before writing legal thrillers set in Italy. Guido Guerrieri, a lawyer, carries the main series from Involuntary Witness (2002) through A Walk in the Dark (2003), Reasonable Doubts (2006), Temporary Perfections (2010) and A Fine Line (2014); Pietro Fenoglio leads a second. Involuntary Witness reached English in 2005 in Patrick Creagh's translation and became an Italian television series. The Past is a Foreign Country took the 2005 Premio Bancarella. Eleven books reach L'orizzonte della notte (2024), at a median of 249 pages.

Tony Dunbar is the creator of Tubby Dubonnet, the fictitious character behind one of two Dunbar series; the other is Florida Fables. Subjects on the listing include lawyers, New Orleans, Louisiana, bank robberies, Carnival and Hurricane Katrina. The catalogue lists 16 books starting with Crooked Man (1994), followed by City of Beads (1996) and Shelter from the Storm (1997). Tubby Meets Katrina (2006) comes later, and The Story of the Sarasota Assassination Society (2022) is the newest.

Phillip Margolin

35 books• 6 series

Legal thrillers built on murder trials are the work of Phillip Margolin. Gone, But Not Forgotten (1993) sits early in a catalogue of 35 books that reaches 2026, and Margolin's series follow the lawyers Robin Lockwood, Amanda Jaffe, Madison Kincaid, and Brad Miller with Dana Cutler. Courtroom suspense and criminal investigation carry the novels, which run to a median of 362 pages.