The Leo Maxwell Mysteries Series

This Shamus Award–winning mystery was named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews and Deadly Pleasures.   Leo Maxwell grew up under the care of his older brother, Teddy, a successful yet reviled criminal defense attorney, after their father was jailed for their mother’s murder. Now a rookie lawyer, Leo must be there for Teddy after he’s shot in the head and falls into a coma.   Given that Teddy has enemies on both sides of the law in San Francisco, Leo realizes the search for his brother’s shooter falls on him. But as he begins to examine the life of a brother he barely knew, Leo uncovers a list of suspects longer than he imagined. With the gunman still on the loose, Leo needs to find him fast—in this suspenseful novel that won the 2014 Shamus Award for Best First P.I. Novel.   “The final showdown is hair-raising. . . . Sensitive, ingenious and suspenseful. A series is promised and very welcome indeed.” —Kirkus Reviews   “Promises to be the start of a riveting series.” —Richmond Times-Dispatch  

A San Francisco lawyer confronts a case that strikes tragically close to home in an “outstanding” whodunit by a Shamus Award–winning author (Publishers Weekly, starred review).   Leo Maxwell has left private practice and is working as a public defender in San Francisco. He and his co-counsel, Jordan Walker, are in the midst of trial, brilliantly defending Randall Rodriguez, a mentally ill homeless man whom they contend falsely confessed to the rape of a young San Francisco socialite. After their client is acquitted, Leo and Jordan fall into an intense relationship—until Jordan is found brutally raped and murdered in her apartment.   Leo, the last person known to have seen her alive, is the natural suspect, and the police are eager for payback after the Rodriguez case. Then things take a shocking turn when Leo and Jordan’s freshly acquitted client walks into the police station and offers to confess to Jordan’s murder. Upset by the rapidity with which the authorities accept this all-too-convenient confession, Jordan’s grieving father tasks Leo with investigating his daughter’s death. Leo agrees—though he knows exonerating Rodriguez will likely bring suspicion back on himself . . .   “Gripping, dramatically written, and very suspenseful.” —Booklist

In this “finely paced mystery,” a lawyer and amateur detective thinks he’s found the case that will make him—but it just might break him instead (Publishers Weekly).   Now working as a criminal defense attorney in Oakland, Leo Maxwell thinks he’s found a new client after a mysterious woman knocks him off his bicycle with her car. She just so happens to have a brother who needs defense on a murder charge. Leo readily agrees and dives right into the investigation.   After taking a series of photographs that seem to blow the lid on corruption in the police department, Leo quickly discovers he’s been had. His client already has representation—one of Oakland’s most renowned gangland lawyers—and claims he doesn’t have a sister. Drawing the ire of criminals and crooked cops alike, Leo is soon framed for murder. Just as he thinks he’s getting closer to the truth, danger is getting even closer.   “Full of intelligent plot twists . . . should appeal to any fan of good writing.” —Publishers Weekly   “Smith has created a wonderfully readable pair of brothers in Teddy and Leo Maxwell. . . . Lion Plays Rough is as good as Bear Is Broken, which is high praise indeed.” —Huntington News  

From an award-winning author, a crime thriller with “some of the sharpest courtroom cut-and-thrust since Presumed Innocent” (Kirkus Reviews).   The Maxwell brothers both became lawyers, following in their father’s footsteps. But their father, Lawrence, had his career come to a screeching halt over two decades ago—when he was convicted of killing his wife.   Now, faced with evidence of stunning prosecutorial misconduct, a San Francisco judge has ordered a new trial for Lawrence. Soon after, a prison snitch and potential key witness turns up dead, and Lawrence’s son, Leo, finds himself trying to defend his father against murder charges both old and new—and confronting the darkness at the center of his own life, as he struggles to do right by both the law and his blood.   From the author of Bear Is Broken, which won the Shamus Award and was a Kirkus Reviews best book of the year, this novel in the Leo Maxwell series is “a sharp-edged legal thriller with the deep emotional undertones of family drama and tragedy” (New York Times–bestselling author Reed Farrel Coleman).   “Superlative . . . Smith is masterly in creating realistic courtroom scenes, including the subtleties of witness examination.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review   “The line Maxwell family members walk between innocence and guilt becomes more blurred with every step and turn of the page.” —Library Journal, starred review

“Full of revelations, surprises and shocks,” the fifth Leo Maxwell mystery pits the underdog defense attorney against an unforgiving prison gang (Bookreporter).   Lachlan Smith’s Shamus Award–winning series continues with attorney-detective Leo Maxwell seeking an exit strategy from his family’s deepening entanglement with a ruthless prison-based gang. Caught between the criminals and the FBI, Leo charts his own path in defending a young woman who was manipulated into brazenly murdering a member of the Aryan Brotherhood in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. When the consequences strike heartbreakingly close to home, Leo, his brother Teddy, and the rest of the family are forced into a winner-takes-all confrontation with men who don’t care how many innocents they harm in achieving their goals. As Leo’s world collapses, long-held secrets are revealed, transforming his perspective on the aftermath of the tragedy that derailed his childhood and fractured his family twenty-one years ago.   The question then becomes who will get revenge first—the Maxwells or the sadistic gang leader who pursues them?   “In its complexity, Wolf’s Revenge might remind a reader of a John le Carré novel; few are who they seem to be. Spies and double agents abound. This novel has action, some violence, but its real strengths are its intricacy and some rather dispiriting revelations about our criminal justice system.” —Tuscaloosa News   “Operating at the top of his game, Smith is as good as anyone writing today at combining a mystery with the overlay of existential dread that noir fans relish.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)