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judicialjunkie.bsky.social
Judicial Junkie.Reads
@judicialjunkie.bsky.social
69 followers 80 following 38 posts
⚖️ Legally Literate 📚 Book Reviews Courtroom dramas, thrillers, and literary fiction that has a least a whiff of a law angle.

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judicialjunkie.bsky.social
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 AI Ethicist Will See You Now
Can you sue a chatbot? Michael Connelly’s “The Proving Ground” puts AI on trial
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November 11, 2025 at 2:25 PM
judicialjunkie.bsky.social
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 Ultimate Literary Hack
Do you really want to slog through a 1,040-page biography? Or let an algorithm pick your next book?
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November 4, 2025 at 8:38 PM
judicialjunkie.bsky.social
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

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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.
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October 30, 2025 at 9:47 AM
judicialjunkie.bsky.social
📚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

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Islands, Displacement & the Fiction of Sovereignty
Inside “Chagos Archipelago”: Tom Lutz on turning the afterlife of colonial power into a contemporary thriller
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October 21, 2025 at 2:15 PM
judicialjunkie.bsky.social
📚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
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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
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October 14, 2025 at 12:23 PM
judicialjunkie.bsky.social
"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
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I Love Dick: The True Crime Years
Chris Kraus's New Book Takes on "In Cold Blood," But Makes It Autofiction
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October 7, 2025 at 1:04 PM
judicialjunkie.bsky.social
📚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
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
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September 30, 2025 at 2:00 PM
judicialjunkie.bsky.social
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
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
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September 23, 2025 at 1:10 PM
judicialjunkie.bsky.social
📚 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
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.
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September 16, 2025 at 1:44 PM
judicialjunkie.bsky.social
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
“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
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September 9, 2025 at 12:40 PM
judicialjunkie.bsky.social
✨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
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…
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September 2, 2025 at 9:18 PM
judicialjunkie.bsky.social
📖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
The Best Literary Party I Ever Attended
9 Books that Donna Leon’s “Backstage” Added to My TBR Pile
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August 26, 2025 at 6:30 PM
judicialjunkie.bsky.social
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
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
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August 19, 2025 at 11:34 AM
judicialjunkie.bsky.social
📚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

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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
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August 12, 2025 at 7:14 PM
judicialjunkie.bsky.social
📚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
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
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August 8, 2025 at 2:32 PM
judicialjunkie.bsky.social
📚Have you ever felt gaslit by a rental listing? Evie's tragic (yet comedic) odyssey in "Dwelling" will make you feel seen. It’s a surreal, darkly funny, and painfully real fable about housing and a broken system.

#Booksky #NetGalley #Dwelling #EmilyHuntKivel
@fsgbooks.bsky.social

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A Novel That Asks If Affordable Housing Is a Fairy Tale
Emily Hunt Kivel’s “Dwelling” turns eviction, displacement, and late-stage capitalism into a dark, fun surreal fable
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August 5, 2025 at 11:53 PM
judicialjunkie.bsky.social
When your browser history becomes Exhibit A...
If you loved “Gone Girl’’” or “The Silent Patient," check out Nicci Cloke's “Her Many Faces.” A twisty satisfying, psychological thriller exploring online radicalization.

@wmmorrowbooks.bsky.social

#Booksky #HerManyFaces #NetGalley

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When Online Obsession Becomes a Legal Weapon
Nicci Cloke’s “Her Many Faces” explores how a woman’s teenage browsing history — and a conspiracy site called The Rabbit Hole — becomes…
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July 29, 2025 at 1:29 PM
judicialjunkie.bsky.social
📚Fixing veteran care & bigotry with AI sounds noble—until Abrams's gripping "Coded Justice" shows Milo hallucinating patients & faking alignment. "Have I built loveable Data, or evil HAL?”

@doubledaybooks.bsky.social
@staceyabrams.com

#BookSky #NetGalley #CodedJustice #MustRead

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What Stacey Abrams’s “Coded Justice” Taught Me About AI’s Ethical Frontier
A Gripping Legal Thriller Where Due Diligence Collides with Untamed Algorithms
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July 22, 2025 at 1:13 PM
judicialjunkie.bsky.social
📖 My patience for a new #Mandalorian installment is running thin, so I'm hitting the books! From a wild #StarWars lawsuit ⚖️ to "The Rescue" graphic novel 🚀& @penguinrandom's reading list, I'm staying busy in the galaxy.

#Booksky

@penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social

bit.ly/46i7VS5
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
bit.ly
July 18, 2025 at 3:27 PM
judicialjunkie.bsky.social
📚From navigating the complexities of the foster care system to finding moments of joy hitting a tennis ball—Charell Star's memoir is a deeply honest personal narrative, showcasing the powerful impact of advocacy. 💪

#BookSky #CharellStar #TrashBagTales

@fostercarefilm.bsky.social

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Charell Star’s “Trash Bag Tales & Other Stories from an Accidentally Happy Life”
Charell Star’s Trash Bag Tales: & Other Stories from an Accidentally Happy Life is a memoir of remarkable personal resilience, and that very quality makes it a must-read. It’s profoundly sad, smart…
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July 16, 2025 at 4:41 PM
judicialjunkie.bsky.social
📚Gary Shteyngart's "Vera, or Faith" brilliantly envisions a near future, satirizing politics via a chilling "Five-Three” Amendment. A prescient, must-read novel!

Still dreaming of his ultimate full on legal thriller. 🙏🏻

@shteyngart.bsky.social.

#VeraOrFaith #BookSky #NetGalley

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Legal Briefs: Voter Fraud, But Make It Constitutional
How Shteyngart’s “Vera, or Faith” Inverts American History to Redefine Citizenship
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July 12, 2025 at 3:17 PM
judicialjunkie.bsky.social
📚Santi Elcano is a public defender answering endless voice mails, representing clients who probably aren't innocent, and procrastinating on visiting a client on death row. Highly recommend. Just don't expect closure.

🙏ARC from
@algonquinbooks.bsky.social

#Booksky #TheSilverState

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“The Silver State”: A Masterclass in What Law School Doesn’t Teach You
Gabriel Urza doesn’t just give us a legal thriller; he gives us a raw, honest window into the human cost of justice
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July 9, 2025 at 1:43 PM
judicialjunkie.bsky.social
📚 If your July 4 weekend involves the Hamptons, bad choices, or a bingeable legal drama, these page turners are for you!

⚖️ Both with lawyers you definitely want on speed dial.

(A repost of an earlier blog.)

#Booksky #GreatBlackHope
#TheNote

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Summering in the Hamptons? Better Lawyer Up
Franklin’s “Great Black Hope” delivers literary firepower; Burke’s “The Note” is a twisty legal thriller
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July 4, 2025 at 2:08 PM
judicialjunkie.bsky.social
Kevin Nguyen’s "My Documents" reimagines Japanese American internment for the tech age. A wickedly smart, darkly funny, devastating look at a future following one family when mass incarceration meets Amazon Prime. bit.ly/4et8J8V

@knguyen.bsky.social
@oneworldbooks.bsky.social

#Booksky #MustRead
The Constitution Didn’t Save Him. Google Did.
I kept waiting for the Constitution to show up in Kevin Nguyen’s fantastic dystopian novel “My Documents.” It never did.
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July 1, 2025 at 3:44 PM
judicialjunkie.bsky.social
Because nothing says “hot girl summer” like 18th-century court transcripts, dueling lawyers and and questionable verdicts.

3 fantastic page-turners based on real-life historical trials.

#Booksky

@laurenwillig.bsky.social
@harpercollins.bsky.social
@henryholtbooks.bsky.social

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Legal Briefs: When Hamilton & Burr Were Co-Counsel
“The Girl from Greenwich Street” brings America’s first murder trial to life and two other excellent historical courtroom dramas
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June 27, 2025 at 2:43 PM