True stories of legal noir

November 17, 2014 6:08 PM

I'm looking for stories (books, nonfiction but maybe fiction) of what you could perhaps call legal noir. Stories that have some of the trappings of noir (private eyes, plainclothes cops, grifters and crime bosses, you know the deal) but are more in the vein of legal cases rather than bodies and gunshots. Conspiracies a plus. Think in tone perhaps the movie Chinatown or the Great American Streetcar scandal.
posted by lewedswiver to Society & Culture (7 answers total)

Obscure book, perhaps obscure case outside my home state of Alabama, but here's a good non-fiction book about the assassination of Albert Patterson. He was (essentially) Alabama's Attorney General elect, having won the Democratic nomination earlier in 1954, when he was gunned down. He had run on a platform of cleaning up Phenix City, which was a very crooked town full of gambling, prostitution, etc.

http://www.amazon.com/When-Good-Men-Nothing-Assassination/dp/0817351922

Checks about all your boxes, and focuses a long section of the book on the martial law period that followed, and the trials of several individuals involved.
posted by randomkeystrike at 6:52 PM on November 17, 2014

Ready for the People
Author Marissa N. Batt details her three most chilling cases as a deputy DA in Los Angeles.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 7:58 PM on November 17, 2014

Not so much legal noir as detective noir, but you might enjoy Amy Reading's The Mark Inside: A Perfect Swindle, a Cunning Revenge, and a Small History of the Big Con (background here, review here).
posted by verstegan at 2:36 AM on November 18, 2014

There was a wonderful series of true crime writing anthologies. I will guess half of the selections are noir-ish.

I posted on these on Metafilter, including those that had online links. Otherwise, buying the hard copies is a good idea to pick up the several that can't be found online and because, well, online reading sucks in comparison.

Here are my previous posts. 1, 2, 3.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 4:42 AM on November 18, 2014

These are movies, not books, and might be rather light-weight, but how about

Silkwood

Erin Brockovich

The Verdict
posted by doctor tough love at 7:58 AM on November 18, 2014

I am currently reading Queen of Thieves: The True Story of "Marm" Mandelbaum and Her Gangs of New York by J. North Conway, and it might fit your interests. Fredericka Mandelbaum ran the most successful fencing (dealing in stolen goods) operation in Gilded Age New York, and stayed successful and out of jail because she lined the pockets of powerful people like Boss Tweed. She fled to Canada in 1884 when the Pinkerton detectives were on her trail.
posted by stampsgal at 11:52 AM on November 18, 2014

And the Sea Will Tell. I read it years ago, and this reminds me I should read it again.

And the Sea Will Tell is a true crime book by Vincent Bugliosi and Bruce B. Henderson. The nonfiction book, still in print as a trade paperback, recounts a double murder on Palmyra Atoll; the subsequent arrest and trial of Duane ("Buck") Walker and his girlfriend, Stephanie Stearns, whom Bugliosi and Leonard Weinglass defended. The story is told from the perspective of Stearns, with additional facts corroborated by other witnesses.
posted by cyndigo at 6:03 PM on November 18, 2014