My Non-Definitive List of My Favorite Writers of Legal Thrillers

Alan Simpson
Reading is a Novel Idea
3 min readJul 24, 2024

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Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash

I recently read A Calamity of Souls by David Baldacci. It was the first Baldacci and the first true legal thriller I have read in a long time. In the comments, I said that I should put together a list of my favorite authors of legal thrillers. Thinking about the list is what made me realize that I have not read as many legal thrillers as I used to. I need to fix that.

So, here is my list in no particular order

  • John Grisham — I think every list needs to start with him. His early books — The Firm, A Time To Kill, Pelican Brief — were all very good. He’s been a bit hit or miss for me lately, but when he is on he is one of the best.
  • Lisa Scottoline — The Rosato & Associates books are some of my favorites. Lisa also has some good standalone thrillers and some very good historical fiction novels. She is also a very nice person.
  • Robert K Tanenbaum — His Buth Karp series started out as strong legal thrillers focused on Butch working as a DA in New York. The later books get a little out there with major threats to the Karp family, a killer/leader of the mole people who has a connection to Karp’s daughter, Russin mafia family members, etc. I still loved them and I’m disappointed he hasn’t written a new one since 2017.
  • John Lescroart — I first…

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Alan Simpson
Reading is a Novel Idea

I am a semi-retired former librarian who writes about a variety of topics. I review TV shows. I review books. I write about what is happening around us.