As early as the mid-15th century, scandalous trials were at the center of many printed histories and theatrical performances. The legal thriller took a big step forward in development when a French lawyer, François Richer, wrote in the preface to Causes Celebres: “I took care to organize the material in such a way that the reader cannot immediately see how a case will end and what verdict will be announced. It remains in a state of uncertainty during the development of the plot, and in this way I believe that each case becomes more striking. The reader will remain curious until the last page. With this element of suspense, Richer created the model of the genre in its modern form. Anna Katherine Green, known as the mother of the American crime novel, was the daughter of a famous criminal defense lawyer. His first book, The Leavenworth Case, 1878, was the first American bestseller. Her overly dramatic method is almost comical today, but she was the first to introduce multiple plot features, such as the rich man who was murdered shortly before his will was changed, the heroic lawyer who falls in love with his client, the use of forensic evidence, the corpse found in the library, and others. I think we need to include a little bit of education about the law and its procedures, maybe a court scene, and that sums up the legal thriller. The story behind evolution would take a book or two to tell. Here are the highlights. After several rejections, Gardner`s first novel, The Case of the Velvet Claws, was published by Thayer Hobson, president of William Morrow & Co., who suggested the author write Mason as a series character. Eighty-one perry Mason detective novels followed.

According to critic Dennis Bounds, the formula of any Mason novel can be placed on a single premise: “And if an innocent man or woman who has every reason in the world to commit murder has little more than a fragile alibi to prove to the police that he or she did not, is involved in this murder and arrested, and asks attorney Perry Mason to defend him. Taking these elements as a stepping stone, the plot continues on a trajectory to the climax – usually in a process – where the actual killer is revealed. Before I started writing legal thrillers, I wondered why we love the law and what sparked our fascination with lawyers, stories of civil conflict, and those in which people have authority issues. I went in search of the origins of the genre and found a rich history of chills and chills. I also discovered something particularly interesting about how people see lawyers through the evolution of these stories and through the prism of their personal forays into the legal drama. In Mason`s time, many right-wing thrillers were born. Cornelius Grafton, the father of bestselling author Sue Grafton, used pre-World War II Kentucky as a setting for multifaceted plots, procedural maneuvers, and fast-paced pace with attention to detail. When Wilkie Collins` books The Woman in White and The Moonstone were published, they were more popular at its peak than a new grisham novel. Collins was a friend and student of Charles Dickens, who was also experimenting with legal thrillers at the time.

Collins was the first to bring together the innocent person, a conspiracy, the suspense, the detective, the legal system – in short, the quintessence of the legal thriller. As these stories have progressed over time, the lawyer`s perspective has also evolved in society. In the days of Atticus Finch, Perry Mason and before, lawyers were respected and often revered as pillars of society. Today, lawyers` views and their role in society span a broad spectrum, as evidenced by today`s gender. Steve Martini and those like him write about lawyers who lose sleep about their clients` problems and argue heroically in front of handcuffed juries. In their legal thrillers, George V. Higgins and others portray a sinister street lawyer who stays just one step ahead of his prison clients. * Many thanks to Marlyn Robinson (1947-2014), law librarian at the University of Texas School of Law, for some of the references used above and for creating the legal novel section in Tarlton Law Library magazines. Today, Grisham continues to lead the pack with Michael Connelly and his Mickey Haller series, followed by Diane Capri, John Ellsworth, Mark Pryor, Lisa Scottoline, Alafair Burke, Kenneth Eade, William Landay, Robin James, Robert Dugoni, Marcia Clark, Larry A. Winters – the list goes on and on – suggesting that it`s much more interesting to write about the law, than to practice it.

A review in a few years will show how the genre has evolved as these new writers mark the legal thriller. In the 1950s and 60s, the first of the truly realistic American legal dramas, Anatomy of a Murder, surpassed all right-wing thrillers. It was written in 1958 by John D. Voelker, a Michigan Supreme Court justice, and published as Robert Traver. He pitted a small-town hero against a gun-armed prosecutor in the trial of an unsympathetic man who could have defended his wife`s honor with murder. Travers raised the bar for legal thrillers with his attention to correct legal procedures and a memorable finale. In 1960, Harper Lee`s To Kill a Mockingbird was released on its own iconic shelf. In 1987, Scott Turow`s Presumed Innocent skyrocketed the market for right-wing thrillers.