Larry A Winters Books in Order
Explore Larry A Winters books in order, with series guides, short summaries, series background, and clear suggestions for where to start reading.
Last updated: June 9, 2026
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Publication Order
21 books
Burnout
by Larry A Winters
2013
Jessie Black helped convict a serial murderer, but the defense lawyer's breakdown gives the killer a path back into court. To keep him behind bars, she has to prove the lawyer was sane, even though she is no longer sure he was.
Hardcore
by Larry A Winters
2013
Ashley Hale left the adult film world behind, until her sister Tara Rose is found dead and the case is written off as suicide. Convinced Tara was murdered, Ashley returns to a brutal industry and starts asking dangerous questions.
Informant
by Larry A Winters
2014
Jessie thinks she has an easy murder trial until her eyewitness caves and her best remaining witness is a slick jailhouse snitch. Then armed attackers seize the courthouse, and keeping that informant alive becomes a fight for survival.
Web of Lies
by Larry A Winters
2015
Defense attorney Dylan Wood thinks losing a trial is the worst thing that can happen, until a woman from his past threatens to expose a buried secret. With only 24 hours to overturn the verdict, he is suddenly fighting for his own life.
Deadly Evidence
by Larry A Winters
2016
After a school massacre leaves Philadelphia reeling, Jessie Black goes after the hidden figure who pushed a teenager toward murder. Proving that an online manipulator is as guilty as the shooter will test every part of her case.
Fatal Defense
by Larry A Winters
2017
A desperate teenage girl tells Jessie her father was murdered and the police are letting it slide. The claim pulls Jessie into a politically explosive case where the lines between victim, killer, and justice are anything but clear.
Grave Testimony
by Larry A Winters
2017
In this prequel novella, a drug dealer brings Jessie Black information about the cold case murder of a little boy. With old evidence fading and secrets buried in the original investigation, she has one shot to finally bring the killer to court.
False Justice
by Larry A Winters
2018
When Jessie's old law school friend Kelly fears a corporation is stalking her, nobody takes the threat seriously. After Kelly dies in an apparent accident, Jessie has to prove it was murder and take on a system that may already be bought.
Silenced Witness
by Larry A Winters
2019
Jessie Black is ready for a brighter future until a savage murder drags her back into court. To convict a remorseless killer, she must outmaneuver defense attorneys Hal and Kristina Nolan and protect a witness the other side wants silenced.
Conviction
by Larry A Winters
2020
A new District Attorney turns Jessie's office into a political machine, then targets Max Coleman, a man who once helped her family. To save an innocent friend, she may have to leave prosecution behind and become a defense lawyer.
Lethal Innocence
by Larry A Winters
2020
When hip-hop star Jurdel Frazier is accused of murdering another girlfriend years after beating an earlier case, Jessie Black sees a chance to finally get justice. But the deeper she digs, the less she trusts the prosecutor beside her.
Witness Hunt
by Larry A Winters
2021
In this Jessie Black short story, grief drives a widower toward revenge. As emotions boil over, the pursuit of justice threatens to turn into something darker and more dangerous.
Murder Charge
by Larry A Winters
2022
Jessie Black is no longer a prosecutor, but when a colleague's 14-year-old granddaughter is charged with murder, she steps back into Philadelphia criminal court as the defense. The case becomes a brutal showdown with DA Damon Faber, who wants to destroy her as much as he wants a conviction.
Last Stand
by Larry A Winters
2023
When Jessie's mentor Jesus Rivera is accused of a horrific crime, she cannot clear him without risking the public trust she now carries. As she and Mark Leary dig deeper, blackmail, murder, and a Philly crime family close in.
Return of the Prosecutor
by Larry A Winters
2023
Jessie Black is miserable in private practice when the city's District Attorney is arrested on corruption charges. A bid to reclaim the office she loves turns into a fight against a deadly conspiracy that does not want her anywhere near power.
Blood Oath
by Larry A Winters
2024
A ritual killing points Jessie toward the cult leader who once slipped through her grasp, offering a brutal second chance at justice. Chasing the case could also wreck her reelection campaign and expose painful secrets from the past.
Deal Breaker
by Larry A Winters
2025
After a cyberattack rocks their firm, Hal and Kristina Nolan take a murder case backed by a billionaire with his own agenda. The deeper they dig, the clearer it becomes that everyone involved is hiding something dangerous.
Street Justice
by Larry A Winters
2025
The murder of a billionaire developer should be a straightforward case, but it explodes into protest, threats, and political fury. As Jessie prosecutes under intense pressure, the danger reaches her home and everyone around her.
The Christmas Confession
by Larry A Winters
2025
On Christmas Eve, detective Emily Graham expects a bad date, not a man in a Santa suit confessing to murder. When his story does not fit the evidence, she has one long night to find the truth before morning.
The Legal Limit
by Larry A Winters
2025
Philadelphia defense attorneys Hal and Kristina Nolan have built their marriage and firm on impossible courtroom wins. When business trouble and a major murder case hit at once, they are forced to fight for their clients, their reputation, and each other.
Original Sin
by Larry A Winters
2026
When Kristina Nolan is framed for murder, the case becomes the most personal battle she and Hal have ever faced. To save his wife, Hal may have to break open an old secret that could wreck everything they built.
Where should I start?
If you want the main series from the beginning: Burnout → Informant → Deadly Evidence
If you want a shorter intro first: Grave Testimony → Burnout → Informant
If you want Jessie's big career turning point: Conviction → Murder Charge → Return of the Prosecutor
If you want the defense-side spin-off: The Legal Limit → Deal Breaker → Original Sin
If you want a standalone in the same world: Web of Lies
Author bio
Larry A Winters writes thrillers full of lawyers, cops, courtroom pressure, and people making messy choices when the stakes get high. His books return again and again to Philadelphia, where justice, ambition, and fear are always bumping into each other.
He seems especially interested in what happens when the legal system works, and when it plainly doesn't.
Winters began publishing novels in 2013, the year Burnout and Hardcore appeared. Burnout introduced Jessie Black, a Philadelphia prosecutor whose cases mix investigation with courtroom combat. Hardcore showed a different side of his fiction, a darker, more personal thriller about Ashley Hale, a former adult film performer pulled back into a life she wanted to leave.
He kept building from there. Books like Informant, Deadly Evidence, False Justice, and Murder Charge helped make Jessie Black the center of his fictional world, while Web of Lies proved he could step away from his main heroine without leaving the legal atmosphere behind. Even when the plot changes, the pressure never really lets up. What matters in these books is not just the crime or the trial, but the moral squeeze around them. Readers who like smart procedure and personal stakes usually find both.
Philadelphia matters here.
The city is more than backdrop. The DA's office, the courthouses, the neighborhoods, the press, and the behind-the-scenes dealmaking all shape the stories. As the Jessie Black books move into Conviction, Return of the Prosecutor, Last Stand, Blood Oath, and Street Justice, the series gets bigger in scope, stretching from individual murder cases to office politics, old loyalties, election pressure, and public anger.
He also knows how to use supporting characters well. Detective Mark Leary, detective Emily Graham, mentor Jesus Rivera, and the defense team of Hal and Kristina Nolan all help make the Jessie Black world feel lived in. The Nolans eventually stepped into the spotlight in their own books, beginning with The Legal Limit and continuing with Deal Breaker and Original Sin.
In his own blog posts and author notes, Winters comes across as a regular thriller fan who also happens to write them. He has said he enjoys reading by the fireplace, rare movie nights with his wife, smart TV dramas and dumb TV comedies, beach vacations built around books and food, video games, gadgets, and a healthy obsession with Star Wars. In another post, he jokes that he would rather curl up on the couch with his wife and kids than freeze in some dramatic life-or-death snowstorm.
Those small details fit the work. In posts about writing, he talks about plot twists, endings, humor, weather, and redemption arcs, which helps explain why his novels are both fast-moving and carefully built. He likes stories where pressure changes people, or exposes who they were all along. That idea runs through the courtroom scenes just as much as the action scenes.
Winters has kept adding to this legal thriller world for more than a decade, and he has done it with steady momentum. He writes like someone who enjoys the machinery of a case, but cares just as much about the people caught inside it. Whether you start with Jessie Black, Ashley Hale, or the Nolans, you can see the same interests running through the work, justice, loyalty, pressure, and the cost of telling the truth when powerful people want it buried.
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