An Obsession with Laws?
When I was younger, I pretty much read anything that was slightly interesting to me. Horror, sci-fi, fantasy, slice of life. You name it. Especially if it was recommended directly to me. I especially loved mysteries, and still do to this day, as much as I am absolutely terrible at solving them.
However, lawyer books always seemed boring to me. Many a John Grisham and Michael Connelly novel were met with an exasperated eyeroll. When I worked at a library once, I couldn’t understand why we had such an in-depth collection and why people were always checking them out.
Keep in mind, I still loved the detective novel. Around the same time I was huffing at the likes of The Pelican Brief and The Lincoln Lawyer, I was diving into Jim Butcher’s wizard detective Harry Dresden. I watched plenty of law-based movies. A Few Good Men and My Cousin Vinny. I even kind of enjoyed the law. To this day, I will occasionally look up laws and cases for entertainment. I watch true crime and watch a few content creation lawyers on Youtube, but I always ignored the novels.
Until I didn’t.
One year, I got curious enough to give John Grisham’s The Firm a chance. It was a bit cheesy in places and I didn’t enjoy the resolution of the novel, but everything I enjoyed about detective serials, I realized I liked about legal thrillers. I followed this up with Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer and found myself hooked (to the books, not the movie. Man, that was bad) to the characters and excited to read the next one in the series.
Mixing the minutiae of the justice system with the narrative of thrillers, all while presenting a morally-gray character did something for me. I joke that I am now officially old as I greedily read these novels, but I do kick myself that I also discounted these stories without ever giving them a chance. Mystery and legal don’t necessarily go hand in hand, but they aren’t far off of each other. It’s how law enforcement and the justice system work together. Most mysteries are solving a crime. And yet it wasn’t until I stepped over that thin, thin line that I realized how much I enjoyed the whole picture.
