According to Bill Domnarski, "California's list of lawyer-novelists, which has close to 20 members, boasts not just some of the best-selling lawyer-novelists but also some of the very best stylists." The quote is from Bill's article in California Lawyer titled "Eat Your Heart Out: How Did They Do It? 7 of California's Top Lawyer-Novelists at a Glance" (PDF). (Article provided with the permission of the author.)
The article contains interesting thumbnail sketches of these lawyer-novelists: James Huston, Pamela O'Shaughnessy, Sheldon Siegel, Steve Martini, Walter Walker, Richard North Patterson, and Patricia Benke.
Bill Domnarski is a lawyer and writer from Riverside, California. According to the article's tagline, Bill's book on Supreme Court justices, Revealing Personalities, will be published "early next year."
Related post: Advice to Young Lawyers #4 (How to write a bestseller)
Thanks for that. I haven't read too many of those authors. The Perri O'Shagunessy book I read was pretty good, though. As was the Steve Martini.
I have a Salvation Army about 60 feet from my house so I go there every once in awhile and stock up on legal thrillers. Lisa Scottioline is the writer I like the best of the younger generation although Turow is the most literary of them all.
This is really the reason I went to law school. I'm a fiction writer, not a legal writer. I'm working this summer on a lawyer/techie-nerd PI sort of thing. Watch for it at your local supermarket bookstand.
Posted by: Steve | June 17, 2004 at 09:48 PM