This is the week when many of us express gratitude — for friends, family, even life itself, and Marcia Clark is no different. Her gratitude extends to FX’s lauded miniseries “The People vs. O.J. Simpson” and its handling of one of the most dramatic events of her life. “I didn’t think I’d want to relive it, but I had to know what they did, and it was amazing,” Clark told The Post. As for watching her prosecutor self played by Sarah Paulson, in an Emmy-winning performance: “It doesn’t get any better than that!”
Clark left the prosecutor’s office in 1996 and went on to write for TV before turning her hand to crime novels. Her latest is “Moral Defense,” featuring her hard-working criminal defense attorney, Samantha Brinkman.
Here are four crime novels she loves:
Here we follow the plight of an orphan left in a house occupied by petty thieves and pickpockets who learns from an early age what that life’s about. The labyrinthine plot takes you through fascinating twists and turns and delivers Victorian England in such a way that you understand the unfairness, the ways children and women were abused. And you see it through a young girl’s eyes.
This is one of Mosley’s Easy Rawlins books, and the story’s almost too big to encapsulate. Easy is a very profound private eye. His dialogue is so natural and his message has enormous depth. Even as you’re being entertained, you’re learning something. This one really grabbed my heart.
We think of [Truman] Capote’s “In Cold Blood” as the first of the novelized murder stories, but before it came this. Levin was a cub reporter who covered the Leopold and Loeb trial, in which the sons of two wealthy families kidnapped and killed a boy in an effort to create the perfect crime. It has one of the best courtroom scenes I’ve ever read.
Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow
I had the honor of moderating a panel with [Turow] in New York a few years ago. In this book, his prosecutor, Rusty Sabich, has an affair with a co-worker and is accused of killing her. Amazing plot, amazing character development — and the way Turow shows office politics in the DA’ s office was incredibly realistic.