Legal thrillers?
mrt wrote:
> Yes, and it has even spawned a whole subgenre that
sells exceedingly
> well: legal thrillers.
So, how about hard-boiled legal thrillers?
I guess it depends on how you define (here we go again) the
term
"legal thrillers."
Merely having a lawyer as the lead character, to me, isn't
enough. The law and legal arguments should play an integral
part as well. (So Craig Rice's romping, stomping Malone
stories are more hard-boiled, acid-tinged screwball binges
than legal thrillers, at least in my book).
For example, John Grisham's books, or at least many of them,
really don't qualify. Sure, his central characters are
usually lawyers, but is that enough? Not every book that
focusses on a cop is a police procedural, after all.
Grisham's basic format, from those I've read, is like
this:
Lawyer stumbles over something shady, which leads to the
discovery of a huge conspiracy. Then he goes on the run with
the bad guys chasing him. Mayhem and numerous cliff hangers
and narrow escapes ensue until he figures out how to see
justice done. What Indiana Jones is to archaeology or James
Bond is to espionage Grisham is to legal thrillers.
The denser, more complex work of Scott Turow, on the other
hand, tends to obsess more about the law (and justice)
itself, and its finer machinations (and abominations). Often
hard-boiled in tone, if not style.
In between are everyone from Erle Stanley Gardner (in the
early books, Perry Mason is about as shady and two-fisted a
shyster as you'd want on your side) to William Lasher's
mess-in-the-making Victor Carl.
I've enjoyed several books tagged as "legal thrillers" over
the years, but I'm not sure they'd all fit my definition of
either a legal thriller or hard-boiled. That need to be about
the law -- and all the nit-picky dancing on the head of
assorted legal pins -- almost seems to preclude their also
being hard-boiled.
Gardner's A.A. Fair books come closest, maybe -- although the
action is as old-fashioned pulpy and often as hard-boiled as
you'd like, Donald Lam's scams are often based on sound, if
obscure, legal theory
(Gardner was a lawyer).
Any other suggestions for hard-boiled (or noir, I guess)
legal thrillers? Does such a cat really exist?
Kevin Burton Smith The Thrilling Detective Web Site 10 Years
of P.I. Thrills... and counting...
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 13 Mar 2008 EDT