Different countries and cultures have different views about lawsuits. Some societies are very litigious; others are less so. And in others, there are restrictions on what counts as a legitimate lawsuit. Anyone who’s ever been involved in a lawsuit can tell you how expensive and time-consuming they can be, whether you’re the plaintiff or the defendant. Even a small-claims civil lawsuit can be tense and suspenseful, so it’s not surprising we see lawsuits all through crime fiction. I’m not talking here of criminal cases, and you’ll notice that I won’t be talking as much about books or series where the protagonist is a lawyer – too easy! Even so, there are plenty of crime novels where a lawsuit plays a role.

Charles Dickens’ Bleak House is often considered a proto-detective story, since it involves a police detective, Inspector Bucket, who investigates when an attorney called Mr. Tulkinghorn is murdered. The real focus of the novel is not Bucket’s investigation, really. Rather, it’s the Jarndyce case, a long, complex dispute over a will. As the novel begins, the case has been languishing in the courts for generations, and there seems no sign of a resolution any time soon. As the novel goes on, Dickens traces the lives and interactions of some of those connected to the case (including Mr. Tulkinghorn), or with interest in the case, and we see how one case about one will can have a lasting impact on a lot of people.

Mike Befeler’s series featuring Paul Jacobsen begins with Retirement Homes are Murder. In the novel, Jacobsen lives in a Honolulu retirement home. He struggles with short-term memory, so he keeps notes on everything that happens, so he can refer to them as needed. One day, the body of fellow resident Marshall Tiegan is discovered in one of the home’s trash chutes. It’s not long before Jacobsen finds himself a ‘person of interest.’  Tiegan was preparing to sue him, so as far as the police are concerned, Jacobsen has a good motive. After all, lawsuits are expensive and fraught with problems. Jacobsen himself can’t remember what the conflict was about, but he knows that if he doesn’t work out what happened, he could be arrested. So, he starts asking questions. And he soon finds out that more than one person had a good reason to want Tiegan dead.

In Theresa Schwegel’s The Good Boy, we are introduced to Chicago police officer Pete Murphy and his family. They’ve recently moved to a new part of the city, where Pete’s joined the K-9 team with his furry partner, Butch. One day, Pete’s confronted by a young man named Ja’Kobe White. It seems Murphy was part of a security detail for a judge whose ruling ended in the death of White’s brother. He bears a serious grudge against the judge and against Murphy, so their meeting becomes a full-on argument. Butch tries to protect his owner by biting White (the bite is not at all serious). Now, the White family decides to sue Murphy. As if that case weren’t difficult enough, the Murphy family also faces other troubles. Some have to do with the lawsuit and a related case; others are family issues. They all combine to put a great deal of pressure on everyone in the family.

Yrsa Sigurðardóttir’s My Soul to Take begins as Reykjavík attorney Thóra Gudmundsdóttir gets a new client. Jónas Júlíusson owns an exclusive resort and spa which he believes is haunted. He wants to sue the former owners of the land, because he believes they knew the property was haunted and didn’t inform him. Thóra doesn’t believe in ghosts. But a fee is a fee, and besides, this case will mean an all-expenses-paid trip to a luxury spa. So, she takes the case, and travels to the spa. There, she learns that there is more going on here than she’d thought. When another resort guest is found dead, she’s on the scene, and gets involved in the investigation.

There’s also Don Winslow’s The Dawn Patrol. The main action in the story begins when sometime-PI Boone Daniels is hired by a law firm, Burke, Spitz, and Culliver. They represent Coastal Insurance, which has come to believe that one of their policyholders burned down his warehouse to file a fraudulent insurance claim. They’re not ready to sue that policyholder. The warehouse owner says he is innocent and wants Boone to find a young woman, Tamera Roddick, who witnessed the fire. Boone reluctantly agrees and soon traces the young woman to a cheap motel. Then, she dies from a fall off the balcony of her hotel room. To Boone’s surprise, though, it turns out that the dead woman is not Tamera, but another woman who had Tamera’s ID. Now, he’s got a very tangled case to unravel and a murder to solve.

Lawsuits might be big or small, but either way, they can cause a lot of stress and cost a lot of money. And at least in crime fiction, they can lead in any number of directions…

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from George Harrison’s Sue Me, Sue You Blues.