Robert K. Tanenbaum Books

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Robert K. Tanenbaum is an American author, trial lawyer, and politician that writes legal thrillers. Born in 1942 in Brooklyn, Tanenbaum earned his BA from the University of California, Berkley, an institution he attended after earning a basketball scholarship. He also went to Boalt Hall School of Law from where he acquired his JD.

The author enjoyed an illustrious legal career before finally making his way into publishing. He was a District Attorney in New York, working under D.A. Frank Hogan. He eventually had the opportunity to lead the Homicide Bureau.

His resume includes stints as the Chief of the Criminal Courts and the head of the legal staff training program in the D.A’s office. He was part of the House Select Committee (Deputy Chief Counsel) that investigated President Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr’s assassinations.

The author’s legal efforts outside the confines of the government were just as impressive, including the work he did on the Hillside Stranger case. Later on in his career, the attorney went back to the Boalt Hall School of Law to teach Advanced Criminal Procedure.

His political career includes the two terms he served as Beverly Hills major, not to mention the eight years he spent as a member of the City Council. He kickstarted his literary career in 1979 when he published ‘Badge of the Assassins’.

If you asked Tanenbaum, he would most likely impute some of the novel’s success to the work that Henry Robbins did. The author was still a prosecutor when he met Robbins. Robbins was a jury foreman on a case that Tanenbaum was trying.

The lawyer was impressed by Robbins. After penning the first one hundred pages of ‘Badge of the Assassin’, Tanenbaum decided to consult Robbins. But he did not know the man’s last name. All he knew was that Robbins worked with ‘Farrar, Straus, and Giroux’. He contacted them and asked if they had an editor called Henry.

He was told that Henry had left the firm for ‘Simon & Schuster’. When he called ‘Simon & Schuster’, they informed him that Henry had abandoned them for ‘E.P. Dutton’ where he worked as editor-in-chief.

These interactions enabled Tanenbaum to learn Robbins’ last name. The author finally connected with Robbins who edited and published his novel. Robbins died before ‘Badge of the Assassin’ was released. Tanenbaum went on to write several novels in the legal thriller genre.

He used his experience to give his stories an element of authenticity. Some of them were directly inspired by cases that the author worked on. With other novels, he personally knew the attorneys involved.

Robert K. Tanenbaum Books into Movies

‘Badge of the Assassin’ became a 1985 live-action TV film. Directed by Mel Damski, it featured James Woods and Alex Rocco.

Best Robert K. Tanenbaum Books

The author is renowned for the fact that he won every single felony case with which he was involved. Some of Tanenbaum’s best novels include:

Reckless Endangerment: D.A. Butch thought he understood the violent mind. As far as he was concerned, murder was often driven by a reasonable motive, be it survival, profit, or even pleasure. But this new wave of deaths made little sense.

The victims seemed random: an elderly shopkeeper, an undercover cop, and a third victim that was shot several times through the head and then left in the Hudson River. Butch has to deal with the far-reaching consequences of the crimes whose motive has been made all the more difficult to decipher by the cryptic message left behind.

‘Reckless Endangerment’ is the 10th novel in the Butch Karp series. It explores the tensions between Jewish and Muslim communities by throwing the spotlight on an Islamic sect that is determined to carry out an attack on a Jewish gathering.

No Lesser Plea: Mandeville Lewis spent his days robbing liquor stores. Eventually, the law caught up with him. Once his life unraveled, he sought out the best defense lawyer in the city. D.A. Roger Karp was determined to put Manderville in prison for senselessly killing two people during his robbery.

But Mandeville found a way to escape justice. Rather than admitting his guilt, Mandeville used an outburst in court to convince the judge that he was insane. He thought that the insanity plea would save him from a long prison sentence. But Karp had no intention of letting the situation lie.

When Does The Next Robert K. Tanenbaum book come out?

Robert K. Tanenbaum doesn't seem to have an upcoming book. Their newest book is Coal Country Killing and was released on June, 13th 2023. It is the newest book in the Robert K. Tanenbaum Non-Fiction Books.

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