Akron Public Library

In his final hours in the Oval Office, the outgoing President grants a controversial last-minute pardon to Joel Backman, a notorious Washington power broker who has spent the last six years hidden away in a federal prison. What no one knows is that the President issues the pardon only after receiving enormous pressure from the CIA. It seems Backman, in his power broker heyday, may have obtained secrets that compromise the worlds most sophisticated...

In 1970, one of Mississippi's more colorful weekly newspapers went bankrupt. To the surprise and dismay of many, ownership was assumed by a 23 year-old college dropout, named Willie Traynor. The future of the paper looked grim until a young mother was brutally raped and murdered by a member of the notorious Padgitt family. Willie Traynor reported all the gruesome details and the paper began to prosper. The murderer, Danny Padgitt was tried before...

When a federal judge and his secretary fail to appear for a scheduled trial and panicked clerks call for an FBI investigation, a harrowing murder case ensues and culminates in the imprisonment of a lawyer who imparts the story of who killed the judge and why. Given the importance of what they do, and the controversies that often surround them, and the violent people they sometimes confront, it is remarkable that in the history of this country only...

Career-driven assistant district attorney Nina Frost knows the guilt familiar to all parents torn by the demands of home and office. But whereas most parents imagine the dangers that can befall their children. Nina witnesses them firsthand. She prosecutes child molesters and she has seen too many criminals slip through the system and walk free. Nina's husband, Caleb, is a stonemason, a methodical man who glories in his ability to construct physical...

A powerful and thought-provoking true story follows young lawyer Bryan Stevenson and his history-making battle for justice. After graduating from Harvard, Bryan had his pick of lucrative jobs. Instead, he heads to Alabama to defend those wrongly condemned or who were not afforded proper representation, with the support of local advocate Eva Ansley. One of his first and most incendiary cases is that of Walter McMillian.

In The Trial, small-town attorney Kent ("Mac") MacClain, in despair over the death of his wife and two sons, is about to commit suicide. Then the phone rings, and he's handed a public defender's role in what is alleged to be the murder of a young woman from a prominent local family. The defendant is a drifter who can't remember what happened, but circumstances clearly point to his guilt. Mac is aided by a pretty out-of-town widow, a Christian psychologist...

Nina's defending a minor who's a major pain: Nikki Zack, a mouthy, rebellious teenager who's being tried as an adult in the murder of her uncle, a wealthy plastic surgeon. Like a lot of people in Lake Tahoe, Nikki disliked Bill Sykes, who showed both greed and snobbery to Nikki and her scatterbrained mother.

A young slave woman switches her light-skinned newborn with her master's son at birth, and a terrible crime and courtroom drama eventually ensue.

Personal drama mixes with court-room drama in this story of lawyer Nina Reilly. After her client, a documentary film maker is killed, one of Reilly's lovers is arrested for murder. He happens to be the father of her son, and obligingly Reilly takes up his defense. A sequel to Motion to Suppress.

Mark Sway is an 11-year-old torn between what he knows and what he can never tell. A hitman will snuff him in half a heartbeat if Mark reveals what he learned about a Mob murder. An ambitious federal prosecutor will keep the pressure on until Mark tells all. Suddenly, Mark isn't a boy playing air guitar anymore. He's a pawn in a deadly game. And his only ally is a courageous but unseasoned attorney who risks her career for him...but never imagines...