I wrote this post some time ago, at just about the same time as I was launching the blog and it covers a bit of ground which I have subsequently written about in more specific posts since then. However, I was looking at it again and I think there is perhaps enough new material in it to make it worth posting, despite the repetition. I think it raises a few interesting points about the role of lawyers in detective fiction and I hoe that you find them interesting as well. Let me know what you think!
Here are some names – Mickey Haller, Dismas Hardy, Eddie Flynn and anybody from John Grisham and there are probably a few more!
The blog is about detectives but where you find detectives, you tend to find lawyers, don’t you. Funnily enough, though, while I seem to be able to find detectives and private eyes almost everywhere – USA, Britain, France and China, for a start – its not so easy to find lawyers across a range of countries. The books I read which feature lawyers (and there are quite a lot of them, tend to be based in the States.
I’ve wondered about whether or not lawyers fit comfortably in the genre we’re focusing on but, on balance, I think they do and a number of those I have come across fit quite comfortably into the type of characters that I think we’re finding in our detective novels. So, they’re legitimate territory for us and I’m going to spend some time talking about a few of my favourites. If you know them already, tell me what you think of them and, if you haven’t come across them, let me introduce them to you. In most cases, it will be a brief introduction here but I’ll spend more time on them in future posts as Dismas Hardy, Eddie Flynn and Mickey Haller all deserve the attention that a full post will give them!
So why do I think we should include them in the blog? They’re not detectives in the true sense of the word but, as I say, the books and plots are very similar to detective novels. They cover all the same areas such as murder, police corruption, gangsters, and so on and they are really just another part of the same process as detectives. The stories are often whodunnits and, almost invariably, they involve twists which I certainly don’t seem to be able to see coming. I’m sure you’re better at that than me!
Dismas Hardy, the creation of John Lescroart, is a fairly recent discovery of mine and I’m guessing that he could be new to you as well. In fact, it wasn’t him who I discovered first but another creation of Lescroart’s, Wyatt Hunt, a private detective used by Dismas. I chanced on him somehow, probably through searching for other authors similar to some of my favourites, really enjoyed the three books in the series and it was a natural progression to move on to the Dismas Hardy books. I think I’ve read fifteen or sixteen and I know there are at least two more out there but they haven’t reached the Kindle library yet. Unfortunately, that might be the end of them as Dismas is getting on a bit but who knows? Certainly well worth a try in my view and I will be putting up another post which goes into John Lescroart’s books in more detail and tells you where the name Dismas comes from!
Mickey Haller and Eddie Flynn also appear in their own blogs so I’ll leave them just now other than to say that you may have seen the film ‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ starring Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller. You may also know or be interested to know that Mickey is a creation of Michael Connelly who has written many books about the detective, Harry Bosch, who just happens to be Mickey Haller’s half-brother. There will be a future post about Connelly and his to protagonists, Bosch and Haller. However, you don’t need to wait for that so please have a try with all of these. The Eddie Flynn books are written by Steve Cavanagh and they are excellent as well!
So that’s fine but, if we’re going to talk about books about lawyers, that can’t be done without giving a special mention to John Grisham who has become a legend in the field! He doesn’t do detectives but, just as with the others I’ve mentioned, his lawyers are essentially doing detective work as well as defending their clients and there are always plenty twists in his plots. In addition, he is a great story teller!
It would be churlish to criticise him in any way principally because I am a big fan and I generally pre-order his books and read them as soon as they come out. At the same time, they can tend to be a little formulaic with broadly similar themes. The principal characters are often along the lines of the struggling and highly principled lawyer defending the clearly-wronged and usually poor client who is often the victim of racial discrimination in the more ‘red-neck’ areas of the United States. Now, I can’t emphasise enough that that is a comment and not a criticism but I would be interested to know if anyone else shares a similar view or, of course, holds an entirely opposite opinion! In any case, I am certainly recommending him to you, read them in any order, and, if you are reading him for the first time or you’re a longstanding fan, let me know what you think! I’ll maybe review his next one to see how it matches up with what I’ve been saying.