Send Lawyers, Guns and Money Scott Eden's "A Killing in Cannabis" Charts the Wild West of California's Weed Trade

Humboldt hippies, Mexican cartels, surf culture, tech bros, and the Cannabis Illuminati (yes, really). Oh, and a murder. Eden weaves it all into a true crime page-turner with the depth.

@spiegelandgrau.bsky.social

#NetGalley #SpiegelGrau #ScottEden #AKillingInCannabis #Booksky

bit.ly/3MtACEf

"The Mixed Marriage Project: A Memoir of Love, Race, and Family" Dorothy Roberts Chronicles Racial Boundaries Through the Couples Who Crossed Them (Including Her Parents)

Scholar Dorothy Roberts thought her anthropologist father's research on interracial marriage began with his love for her mother. Then she found his research began before they met. A memoir, legal history and family detective story.

#Booksky #DorothyRoberts

@onesignal.bsky.social

bit.ly/4612whr

“In Her Defense” When Family Collapse Meets the Courtroom A debut legal thriller explores what happens when libel law tries to adjudicate family breakdown

⚖️📚When family collapse meets the courtroom, nobody wins. Philippa Malicka’s “In Her Defense” is a sharp, unsettling psychological thriller about unlicensed therapy, recovered memories, and the limits of law.

#ScribnerBooks #NetGalley #BookSky

@scribnerbooks.bsky.social

bit.ly/45NiM5w

"Fear and Fury" Review: When Vigilantes Become Folk Heroes Historian Heather Ann Thompson on Bernie Goetz, the four young Black men he shot, and a media-rage playbook America never abandoned

📚⚖️ In "Fear and Fury" Heather Ann Thompson restores humanity to the men shot by Bernie Goetz and brilliantly exposes the media playbook that still turns vigilantes into heroes.

@historianheather.bsky.social
@pantheonbooks.bsky.social

#BookSky #NetGalley #History

bit.ly/4reZ3nr

George Saunders Puts Big Oil on Trial in Brilliant "Vigil" Vigil  George Saunders  Random House, 192 pages (Pub. Date 1/27)

A Christmas Carol, but Scrooge killed the planet and there's no third act.

Master storyteller George Saunders' "Vigil" puts Big Oil on trial. Darkly comic & devastating.

Out Jan 27.

Thx to @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social and @netgalley.bsky.social for the ARC.

#Booksky #CliFi
bit.ly/45H4fsb

Taking the Justice Out of the Justice Department How Jake Tapper's "Race Against Terror" Showed Me What We've Already Lost

Reposting because: Minnesota prosecutors resigned. Comey, James, Bolton indicted. Tapper’s “Race Against Terror” chronicles a DOJ that now feels like a fable. That expertise is disappearing in real time.

@jaketapper.bsky.social @matthewwatkins.bsky.social @atriabooks.bsky.social

bit.ly/3Y1w89U

Thanks! I was struck by how you turned complex litigation into a gripping, page-turning narrative (it would make a fantastic streaming series).

How Pelvic Mesh Scams and Predatory Loans Targeted Women A review of The Pain Brokers by Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

Did You Read That DocuSign Before Clicking? These Women’s Stories Show Why You Should 

📚⚖️Elizabeth Chamblee Burch’s riveting “The Pain Brokers,” reveals the multi-million dollar scam hiding in the fine print.

@eburch.bsky.social
@attriabooks.bsky.social

🙏Thanks for ARC

#BookSky

bit.ly/4jB7h6K

How John le Carré's Tradecraft Really Works A fantastic exhibition and book on drafts, details, and the craft behind John le Carré’s spy fiction writing

A fantastic exhibition and book on drafts, details, and the craft behind John le Carré’s spy fiction writing. "Tradecraft" reveals what goes into creating a masterpiece: obsessive research, endless revision, and 1,237 boxes of handwritten archives.

@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

#BookSky

bit.ly/49nrdW6

How People Reveal Themselves on the Basketball Court A Review of The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits

Ben Markovits’s brilliant “The Rest of Our Lives” follows a law professor on a road trip. The Booker committee called it “quietly exhilarating and moving” — they’re right. But they forgot to mention the pickup games.

#Booksky #NetGalley #Basketball

@summitbooks.bsky.social

bit.ly/4sieA7t

How “The Red Scare Murders” Makes 1950 Look Dangerously Present Con Lehane’s gripping new novel shows how fear politics never disappears. It just adapts.

When Mamdani was arrested for defending taxi drivers, he joined a long tradition. Con Lehane's "The Red Scare Murders" brings to life a 1949 NYC taxi strike where a Black Communist cab driver finds himself on death row.

#BookSky #Netgalley #EssentialNoir

@sohopress.bsky.social

bit.ly/4s6WF3B

How Do You Defend Lesbians You Despise? Adam Morgan’s “A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls” traces the 1921 Ulysses trial and its echoes in today’s censorship war

📚Adam Morgan’s excellent "A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls" on trailblazing publisher Margaret C. Anderson revisits the 1921 Ulysses obscenity trial—sadly, newly relevant.

#BookBans #ComstockAct #BookSky

Thx for the galley @atriabooks.bsky.social

judicialjunkie.substack.com/p/how-do-you...

Taking the Justice Out of the Justice Department How Jake Tapper's "Race Against Terror" Showed Me What We've Already Lost

I went to Franklin Barbecue at Texas Tribune Fest for the brisket. After hearing Texas Tribune editor Matthew Watkins interview CNN's Jake Tapper, I left with a painfully clear picture of what a once functioning DOJ looked like.

@atriabooks.bsky.social @mwatkinstrib.bsky.social

#BookSky #DOJ

Judicial Junkie’s Top Courtroom Dramas and Legal Thrillers of 2025 When I launched Judicial Junkie in May, I promised myself I’d never use the over-used catch-all word “propulsive.”

📚When I launched Judicial Junkie in May, I promised myself I’d never use the over-used catch-all word “propulsive.”

Guess what? I failed. Because these books were propulsive.

#booksky #bestof2025 #legalthrillers #courtroomdrama

bit.ly/49HuCRu

Fatal Choices: Women, Murder and the Courtroom Skip Hollandsworth chronicles the trials of women society never expected to kill. True crime may be about murder, but the writing is what lives.

📚Women who kill: rare & complex. From the archives of Texas Monthly, Skip Hollandsworth’s "She Kills" is sharp, humane true crime that's not sensationalized. A master storyteller at work.

#BookSky

Thx for the review copy!
@harperbooks.bsky.social

@texasmonthly.bsky.social

bit.ly/3LQfozy

The AI Ethicist Will See You Now Can you sue a chatbot? Michael Connelly’s “The Proving Ground” puts AI on trial

Michael Connelly’s "The Proving Ground" is a razor-sharp legal thriller that makes the law’s newest frontier feel real: the space between code and culpability, where Mickey Haller faces the algorithm. It's justice vs. code.

@michaelconnelly.bsky.social
@littlebrown.bsky.social

📚
bit.ly/43lh6Pt

The Ultimate Literary Hack Do you really want to slog through a 1,040-page biography? Or let an algorithm pick your next book?

Two must-read intros: Sloane Crosley on Dorothy Parker's "Constant Reader" (sharp, funny, befitting the author's reviews) and C.M. Kushins on Elmore Leonard's "Picket Line" (the backstory rivals the excellent novella).

#Booksky
@marinerbooks.bsky.social
@mcnallyeditions.com

bit.ly/3WY4o5L

The Case for Never Backing Down (Even When the Law Really, Really Wants You To) Arundhati Roy’s new memoir boils down a lifetime of fighting for justice. She got it from her mama.

Arundhati Roy’s searing memoir, "Mother Mary Comes to Me," memoir boils down a lifetime of fighting for justice. She got it from her mama. It reads like courtroom drama crossed with a family saga.

#Booksky #Books #Arundhatiroy
#mothermarycomestome

@scribnerbooks.bsky.social

bit.ly/4qNIoIv

Islands, Displacement & the Fiction of Sovereignty Inside “Chagos Archipelago”: Tom Lutz on turning the afterlife of colonial power into a contemporary thriller

📚The Empire Strikes Back (Yet Again). Inside “Chagos Archipelago”: Author Tom Lutz on turning the afterlife of colonial power into a contemporary thriller.

#Booksky #DiegoGarciaMilitaryBase
@redhenpress.bsky.social

bit.ly/4oaEeIL

A New Mystery Brings Agatha Christie Back to Life, and All I Can Think Is: My Mother Would Have Loved This Even now, I can hear her quietly turning the pages

📚A ghost of Agatha Christie (or a deluded fangirl? a sophisticated cosplayer?) haunts a Greenwich Village library in Amanda Chapman's pitch-perfect new mystery. Whimsical premise, serious craft: closed circles, red herrings, droll observations plus some serious mixology. 🍸
#BookSky
bit.ly/4mZqNdf

I Love Dick: The True Crime Years Chris Kraus's New Book Takes on "In Cold Blood," But Makes It Autofiction

"The Four Spent the Day Together" takes Chris Kraus from Marfa to Minnesota's Iron Range, where meth and murder blur into something haunting. Like Capote, but messier. No clean resolution, just fragments. Brilliant chaos. #NetGalley #Scribner #TheFourSpenttheDayTogether
bit.ly/4gYN3CP

Your Digital Footprint Is the New Crime Scene The Epistolary Novel Gets A Killer Tech Upgrade In Janice Hallett’s New Mystery The Judicial Junkie

📚Truth in a sworn affidavit? No. Evidence is now found in passive-aggressive WhatsApp messages. "The Killer Question" is Digital Footprint Noir at its best. And Janice Hallett proves to be the genre's Queen.

#NetGalley #BookSky

@atriabooks.bsky.social @janicehallett.bsky.social

bit.ly/3KtayI4

The Year's Best Legal Thriller Isn’t on the Crime Shelf Bruce Holsinger’s "Culpability" is a literary gut-punch where AI, family guilt and law converge after a fatal crash

The best legal thriller of the year isn’t by Grisham or Connelly. It’s Culpability—a literary novel where a self-driving crash turns a family vacation into a criminal investigation. AI may be the star witness.

@bruceholsinger.bsky.social
@spiegelandgrau.bsky.social
#BookSky

bit.ly/3W3zSql

In Defense Of The Solitary Bookworm's Mind A Terrific Cozy Mystery That Made Me Want to Cancel Plans and Read Until 4 a.m.

📚 More than a whodunit, “A Case of Mice and Murder” explores what it means to be a bookworm. Gabriel, a barrister who’d rather read, is drawn into a London murder. Beautifully written, it asks: does reading bring us closer or keep us distant? @bloomsburybooksus.bsky.social #BookSky bit.ly/3KpnE8T

“Mississippi Blue 42:” A Gonzo Legal Brief for Paying College Athletes Eli Cranor’s gripping new novel is a wild, brilliant takedown of race, greed and the NCAA’s unpaid labor system

A gonzo legal thriller that sticks the landing: Cranor’s "Mississippi Blue 42" tackles race, corruption & unpaid labor in college football—with laughs, blood & duffle bags of cash.
Friday Night Lights, but NCAA—meets the DOJ.

#Booksky
@sohopress.bsky.social @mysteriousbookshop.com

bit.ly/3VKkVt2

Justice by Algorithm and Absurdity: Law, Trauma, and the Windowless Courtroom I Spent Years in Family Court. “The Dream Hotel” and “Mothers and Sons” — one speculative, one starkly realistic — show how 5-minute legal…

✨No new post this week (Labor Day pause!) but thrilled to share this: one of my early reviews was just selected for “The Stories That Shaped BAOS in 2025”—a living archive of work that resonated across the "Books Are Our Superpower" community.

@lailalalami.com

#BookSky

bit.ly/47jSUjf

The Best Literary Party I Ever Attended 9 Books that Donna Leon’s “Backstage” Added to My TBR Pile

📖What if Donna Leon threw a cocktail party and talked about opera, her favorite mysteries, what makes stories work and why Tom Ripley is the kind of sociopath you’d want a drink with? That’s the vibe of her excellent new book of essays.

#NetGalley
@groveatlantic.bsky.social

bit.ly/3JxRxU7

How to Rob a System That’s Already Robbing You This novel is “Ocean’s Eleven,” if Danny Ocean had just lost a minimum wage job and had $200,000 in student debt

Fired from retail. $200K in student debt. Hunted by the Debt Police.

Kashana Cauley’s "The Payback" is a darkly funny heist novel about fighting back when the system’s already stacked against you.

@kashana.bsky.social @atriabooks.bsky.social

#ThePayback #KashanaCauley #Booksky

bit.ly/45HCMWr

When Fiction Delivers Justice Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “Dream Count” reimagines a high-profile sexual assault case, giving a voice to a victim the legal system failed

📚What happens when the courts walk away? In her author's note (yes, read it first!), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie states her t aim is to "write a wrong in the balance of stories." And she does: "Dream Count" is a reckoning. Not a verdict, but a greater truth.⚖️

#Booksky #DreamCounts

bit.ly/45LRexA

Legal Briefs: Waiting for the Next Mandalorian Episode, I Ended Up Reading a Star Wars Lawsuit Not your typical legal brief — this one’s packed with Star Wars references, courtroom drama, and a surprising sense of humor

📚This is the Way! Disney & Gina Carano have settled The Mandalorian lawsuit — no terms disclosed.

⚖️If you missed my dive into the original complaint (yes, I read the brief!) along with a Mando-inspired book list, now's a great time to catch up.

#BookSky #Mandalorian

bit.ly/46i7VS5