Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Legal Mysteries
202 Plays6 months ago
From courtroom dramas to lawyers investigating crimes on behalf of their clients, legal mysteries and thrillers have engaged audiences for longer than you think. In this episode, Brook and Sarah discuss mysteries with a legal theme.
Discussed
The Leavenworth Case (1878) Anna Katharine Green
Erle Stanley Gardner (creator of Perry Mason)
The Firm (1991) John Grisham
Matlock (1986-1995) NBC and ABC
Runaway Jury (1996) John Grisham
The Client (1993) John Grisham
A Time to Kill (1989) John Grisham
A Few Good Men (1992) Rob Reiner
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) Agatha Christie
Erin Brockovich (2000) Steven Soderbergh
Lisa Scottoline
Final Appeal (1994) Lisa Scottoline
The Lincoln Lawyer (2005) Michael Connolley
The Lincoln Lawyer (2011 film) Brad Furman
The Lincoln Lawyer (2022-2023 series)
Goliath (2016-2021 series) David E. Kelley and David Shapiro
Lydia Poët (2023 series) Guido Iuculano and Davide Orsini
How to Get Away with Murder (2014-2020 series) ABC
Law and Order (1990-present series) NBC
The Practice (1997-2004 series) David E. Kelley
Spiral (2005-2019 series) Alexandra Clert and Guy-Patrick Sainderichin
Murder in Provence (2022 series) Britbox
For more information
Instagram: @cluedinmystery
Contact us: [email protected]
Music: Signs To Nowhere by Shane Ivers – www.silvermansound.com
Sign up for our newsletter: https://cluedinmystery.com/clued-in-chronicle/
Join the Clued in Cartel: https://cluedinmystery.com/clued-in-cartel/
Transcript
Recommended
![[Re-release] Mysteries in Unusual Formats image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/61e1c276e3ec42007857cff9/d8f895fc-5446-494f-b2f8-5a3f6b131e98.jpg)
![[Re-release] Christie Adaptations with Teresa Peschel image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/61e1c276e3ec42007857cff9/6f635402-1c64-4742-b267-b8bbebce8185.jpg)
Transcript
Introduction and Listener Story
00:00:10
Speaker
Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke, and we both love mystery. Hi Brooke. Hi Sarah, are you ready to talk about legal thrillers?
00:00:23
Speaker
I am, but before we do that, let me just share that my heart is racing a little bit because I know that this Friday, members of the cartel are going to get the first section of what we have written in our listener input story. I know. It's a little bit like being in the witness stand, Sarah. I'm a little nervous.
00:00:49
Speaker
But I think that everyone's going to have a lot of fun reading how the story has opened and how things are getting started. And then we'll be able to get us more input as we go along and help shape the mystery. Yeah, I think it will be fun. And once it's gone out on Friday, I hope my heart rate returns to normal.
The Allure of Courtroom Drama
00:01:10
Speaker
Today we are talking about legal mysteries and let me start by introducing them. So courtroom drama has been a source of entertainment for centuries with early newspapers reporting on revelations made from witness boxes. This is still true today. I'm sure we can all think of trials that we have followed on TV or more recently through social media.
00:01:34
Speaker
Early mystery fiction authors recognized the appeal, and readers have enjoyed legal-themed mysteries for decades. Anna Catherine Green's book The Leavenworth Case, which was published in 1878, featured a lawyer as its sleuth. In addition to introducing many of the tropes that readers of detective fiction are familiar with, the book was one of, if not the first, to use courtroom scenes.
00:01:59
Speaker
The book's treatment of circumstantial evidence also led it to being used at Yale Law School for several years as a textbook. And though she was not a lawyer, Greene was familiar with the law, having worked to support her father, who was a criminal lawyer. And we'll see this a lot. A lot of authors of legal fiction are lawyers themselves.
John Grisham and Modern Legal Thrillers
00:02:22
Speaker
And this is true for Earl Stanley Gardner, who in the 1930s introduced readers to Perry Mason, who would go on to appear in 82 novels, six films, several radio plays, and television series. Most recently, it was a 2020 series on HBO. I haven't read any of the books, but I think this would be categorized as a courtroom drama.
00:02:47
Speaker
Another lawyer turned author is John Grisham, whose second book, The Firm, which was released in 1991, marks a real, I think, turning point in the modern legal thriller. And it has sold millions of copies, as have the rest of the books that Grisham has released. I thought we could start today, Brooke, by talking about whether we think there's a difference between a courtroom drama and a legal thriller.
Legal Thrillers vs. Legal Dramas: What's the Difference?
00:03:16
Speaker
Oh, thanks Sarah. And that is a great question. I hadn't really thought about that as I was preparing, but I did come across the idea that a lot of times the books are called legal thrillers and the shows are called legal dramas and that's nowadays. So I suppose it's the same idea, right? Illegal drama versus courtroom drama.
00:03:40
Speaker
So I'm interested in knowing why we call books thrillers and shows dramas when maybe they're telling the same story.
00:03:50
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, when I think about the thrillers and particularly about John Grisham's books, a lot of them don't actually have scenes in a courtroom, right? The protagonist is a lawyer or is somehow involved in the legal system. And with the firm, he's fighting corruption.
00:04:12
Speaker
but not necessarily doing that in a courtroom. And so we get some insight into what it's like to be working in a law firm, but we don't get that day to day facing the jury or the judge.
Books vs. Screen: Translating Courtroom Scenes
00:04:28
Speaker
But the courtroom dramas I think rely on, you know, we get that explosive piece of evidence that proves that the defendant is guilty or not, better lends itself to television. So, you know, I think Matlock was the same, right? He would, you know, do some investigating, but the big reveal always happened in the courtroom.
00:04:52
Speaker
Yeah, that is a great example. And I've probably watched more than I've read in this sub genre. And, you know, I think that they probably tell the story that way. Because if I think about Grisham movies, also, you know, Runaway Jury is one of them, The Client, A Time to Kill. Those do have courtroom scenes, but maybe that's not the case in the actual book that the story is based on. Because as you say, it translates much better
00:05:21
Speaker
visually than on the page, it's pretty boring to read a courtroom scene because it's obviously just a bunch of dialogue back and forth.
00:05:30
Speaker
You know, I think there's some really powerful courtroom scenes that we can think of, maybe one of the most famous being A Few Good Men, right? You can't handle the truth. And like that is such a, even just saying that now for like, that's such a powerful scene. And I think you're right. I think it would be hard to convey that in a book.
00:05:56
Speaker
Definitely. Yes, those scenes that we have in our mind, and there's also the closing arguments in A Time to Kill that I feel the same way about, that they're so memorable and, as you said, turns everything on its head in those scenes.
00:06:14
Speaker
So Agatha Christie's first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, originally had a courtroom scene in it. Her publisher persuaded her to change it and it ended up with that scene where all of the suspects are gathered in the same room and Poirot does his big reveal. So I wonder if her publisher must have
00:06:37
Speaker
just had that sense. I mean, television didn't exist at the time, but it was less powerful to be reading that. Yeah, great thought. I think that was because, as you said, these courtroom dramas, they were reading true crime in newspapers and then
00:06:54
Speaker
fiction from there. I think that had been a little bit of the tradition, but he saw this opportunity to take it in a different direction and the entire genre changed then. Then the parlor explanation became
00:07:10
Speaker
the tradition in especially amateur sleuth mysteries, which I don't know if we can qualify Poro as amateur, but that idea where basically the cuffs are thrown on at the end and we don't see what happens afterwards.
00:07:26
Speaker
And that's such a great point, Brooke, that the legal mysteries tend to pick up where cozy mysteries and traditional mysteries finish, right? It's after the culprit has been identified and we're kind of taking the place of the jury.
00:07:45
Speaker
and trying to figure out, is this the
High Stakes in Legal Mysteries
00:07:50
Speaker
right person? And so a lot of these books have the lawyer acting as a sleuth and fighting for their client, fighting to find that piece of evidence that proves that their client is not guilty of what they've been charged with.
00:08:07
Speaker
Exactly. And I think that's where these are very high stakes mysteries because this is the end result. Justice is going to be served or thwarted. And so we have this crusading attorney who's really trying to find out the truth. And I think that's why it's so easy.
00:08:26
Speaker
to root for these guys and to be really invested in the stories. And I think corruption is a big theme in a lot of these books, right? The lawyer is up against either corruption in the police investigation or corruption in the legal system that has enabled their
00:08:51
Speaker
client who is not guilty to be, you know, almost at the point of being sent to prison. I think about the Julia Roberts movie, Aaron Brockovich, right? Where as an audience, we are really rooting for the underdog here.
00:09:11
Speaker
Absolutely. That show came to mind for me as well because we want her to win so badly. We really get behind these attorney sleuths, I think you could call them. As you say, there's so much conflict. There's the conflict between yes, prosecution and defense.
00:09:32
Speaker
But many times there's conflict between a defense team or depending on which side this story is being told from. And then there's usually some kind of romantic drama. So there's some conflict there and systems, fighting systems. And there's just so many layers of different kinds of conflict that I think it just drives the story.
00:09:57
Speaker
Absolutely.
Strong Female Lawyers in Fiction
00:09:58
Speaker
I recently read a couple of books by Lisa Scottolini, who she's also a lawyer. And I read the first and the last or the most recent books in her Mary Denizio series.
00:10:15
Speaker
I liked these because the protagonist was a female lawyer, and I feel like a lot of the examples that we can think of, it's a male legal sleuth. In the more recent book, Mary Denizio is partner of a firm that is predominantly female.
00:10:36
Speaker
And they're being accused of reversed sexism and favoring hiring women. And then someone ends up dying. And so she's investigating, trying to protect her firm as well as investigating this murder. And it was a really satisfying mystery.
00:10:54
Speaker
Oh, that sounds great. Interestingly enough, I also picked up Escottolini this week because I had read Grisham, I had read Connolly, and as you say, a very male-centric version of some of these stories. I was interested and I read The Last Appeal and really enjoyed it.
00:11:15
Speaker
would definitely pick up some more Scottelini. And again, of course, a female attorney in that one who also is, um, I thought this was nice. She's going back to work after being a mom for a while. So I think that was like a great kind of a different twist on, um, on a, an attorney as sleuth.
00:11:34
Speaker
And you mentioned Michael Connolly. And so he created the Lincoln Lawyer, who there's a series of books that are quite good, the film with Matthew McConaughey, and then the Netflix series that I think they've done too. And I think there's a third that Netflix is planning to produce.
00:11:58
Speaker
And they're great. I really enjoy those. And again, there's a bit of courtroom in those, but he is doing a lot of active investigating as well.
00:12:12
Speaker
Yeah, I like the Netflix production. I wasn't sure if I would because I got attached to Matthew McConaughey as Mickey. But I like this shorter, you know, because it's Netflix. So these are what, like 30, maybe 40 minute episodes. And so they tie up the cases pretty quickly. And yet they have the through line of his ex-wife and all the drama going on. I thought they've done a really great job with that.
00:12:42
Speaker
And what I really like about Connolly is this world that he's built, right? There's a relationship between the Lincoln Lawyer series and the Bosch series. And I don't know if Netflix has that, but certainly the books do. And yeah, I like this world that he's created.
Morally Gray Lawyers and Anti-Heroes
00:13:06
Speaker
And I didn't realize that, Sarah. I've never read any of the Bosch novels, but I love that. A deep world building always gets me. Another thing I think this sub-genre is ripe for is
00:13:18
Speaker
the anti-hero. A really great example of this is, I have to admit, I can't remember the character name, but Billy Bob Thornton plays the attorney in a series on Prime called Goliath. He's a little bit of that morally gray character. He drinks too much. He kind of goes through the women quickly. He has a really tough time in his personal life.
00:13:43
Speaker
And yet he's that very passionate attorney who does whatever it takes for his clients. And I love the series. And even though you definitely want him to win, you kind of don't like him at the same time. And so I think there's a little bit of that lore about attorneys, kind of being ruthless and maybe anti-heroic. And it really comes through in that series.
00:14:12
Speaker
that's a great recommendation. I haven't come across that series. So I have an example of historical fiction featuring a legal sleuth and that is CJ Sansom's Matthew Shardlake series. It's set in Tudor England and his
00:14:29
Speaker
character is a barrister, and he has assigned some cases where he has to do some investigating of his own. And this is one of my favorite series. I really enjoy it. Oh, that is one of those suggestions you keep making, Sarah. And I just need to put it on my list and get dreamy, because you and I both love Tudor set stories.
00:14:56
Speaker
And that actually reminds me of the Netflix drama, Lydia Poet, who she is investigating murders and trying to fight for her right to practice law, also historical. But what I didn't know and just learned this week is it's based on an actual person. Lydia Poet was the first modern female Italian lawyer.
00:15:20
Speaker
And her disbarment led to a movement to try to allow women to practice law. And so that series is based in fact. I love that, Brooke. And you have recommended that before, and I have not yet watched it. So I will add that to my list. We made a trade. Have you seen, this is on Netflix as well, How to Get Away with Murder? Yes. I loved that series back in the day when it was on network television.
00:15:49
Speaker
And so this features a group of law school students who are involved in a murder and use some of their knowledge to get away with it. And yeah, it's Shonda Rhimes, I think was the creator and it's very good.
00:16:07
Speaker
I didn't realize that was a Shonda Rhimes show, but I'm not the least bit surprised because it is like candy. You just want to binge each episode. I mentioned when I was introducing the topic that there's lots of lawyers who end up writing legal fiction
00:16:26
Speaker
And I have two examples of very high profile lawyer authors. And the first is Beverly McLaughlin, who is the former Chief Justice of Canada's Supreme Court. And she's written a couple of books featuring a criminal lawyer as the protagonist who has to prove that her client is not guilty of what they've been charged with.
00:16:51
Speaker
And those books are set here in Vancouver, and so I, you know, not only because I think Beverly McLaughlin is someone who, you know, has had a fantastic career, love reading books that are set here.
00:17:07
Speaker
The other one, and I just started reading this book, or the first book I think in this series is by Marsha Clark, who herself was a, I think she was the lead prosecutor in the OJ Simpson trial, which is one of those trials that was followed very closely by the media. And I think it was televised as well. So one of those ones that really captured people's
Portrayal of Legal Systems Across Countries
00:17:33
Speaker
attention.
00:17:33
Speaker
and she has written a series of books featuring a public prosecutor who does a little bit of investigating with the police. I would love to look into that. You know, there's a couple of classic TV courtroom dramas such as Law and Order and The Practice that I think I've seen probably every episode. When they come on television, I'm like, oh, I remember this one. I don't necessarily remember the outcome, but, you know, they're just so iconic.
00:18:04
Speaker
Well, and what I like about law and order is it shows that relationship between the police investigation and then the legal trial part of the case. And so it kind of is that crossover where we talked about that, you know, most books either end with the culprit being identified or begin with that trial. It's that kind of crossover piece.
00:18:30
Speaker
Yeah, great point. And we get to see the working relationship between those two entities and the conflict that arises. And this makes me think that a lot of the examples that we've talked about, Brooke, are based in the U.S. with the exception of the Shard Lake series that's set in Tudor England. Most of
00:18:56
Speaker
Anything that we would see on TV or that we read is based on the American justice system. Yeah, that's a great point. I wonder why that is Sarah and maybe it comes back to the idea of the corruption that you mentioned earlier. I think that the way the system is set up gives a lot of opportunities for different things to go wrong and maybe different people's agendas to play out.
00:19:24
Speaker
Well, and I think it just may speak to the different legal systems. So I know in France, there's a series that I would categorize more as a police procedural. The translated name is Spiral, and I think it's on Netflix. And it's much more police investigation. But the way that the legal system there works is different in that the police kind of work alongside the judge from the very beginning.
00:19:54
Speaker
And so the judge actually does some of the investigating as well. And there's another series, this is a British series, but it's set in France and it's called Murder and Provence. And it features Roger Allam as the character of the judge. And he does some investigating. So I think it may just be that we're more familiar with the American justice system.
Legal Thrillers and Noir Fiction: A Stylistic Comparison
00:20:21
Speaker
Yeah, I find that there's a strong connection in legal thrillers to maybe the hard boiled or noir style of writing. Um, very clipped short sentences, fast paced, kind of a heavy reliance on dialogue for what it's worth. I just feel like if you like, uh, legal dramas, you might want to harken back and read some of the older, uh,
00:20:50
Speaker
hard-boiled or noir stories.
00:20:53
Speaker
That's a great recommendation and a great observation, Brooke. The Perry Mason, the most recent version, the one I think it was on HBO, it felt very noir. And you kind of talked about the trope of the washed up lawyer who might be alcoholic, maybe divorced,
00:21:24
Speaker
kind of working on his own that is very similar to that PI noir trope. Absolutely. Yeah, you can draw a line. Well, Brooke, this has been such a great conversation digging a little bit deeper into legal mysteries.
00:21:45
Speaker
It has. It's been great. And once again, we have some things to watch and read as
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:21:50
Speaker
usual. And hopefully this added some ideas for your TBR list listeners. Thanks for being here. Don't forget to go out and join the newsletter and consider becoming a member of the cartel. Join in on all the fun. Until next time, I'm Brooke. And I'm Sarah, and we both love mystery.
00:22:08
Speaker
Clued In Mystery is written and produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen. Music is by Shane Ivers. If you liked what you heard, please consider telling a friend, leaving a review, or subscribing with your favorite podcast listening app. Visit our website at cluedinmystery.com to sign up for our newsletter, The Clued In Chronicle, or to join our paid membership, The Clued In Cartel. We're on social media at Clued In Mystery.