One of my main characters is going to be a wealthy entertainment/sports attorney, and I need a reason for someone to want to kill him. I think my novel is going to take place in NY or California. Its going to be a romance suspense novel, but maybe more suspense than romance. I don't know yet. Well the other character is going to be a female she is going to be a fashion designer or a destination spa manager. Thanks for any input you can give me!
You lawyer, like many lawyers, started his/her career as a public attorney. With that, all you need to do is have the lawyer have defended someone in that part of their career and someone else who feels the need to exact revenge on the person who defended the person who did them some harm. Common enough in the land of legal stories.
It doesn't have to have anything to do with his profession, though a lawyer has lots of chances to make enemies. Maybe he gave some gal a STD during a one-night-stand in college and over the years it made her infertile. Either her or her reproduction-obsessed husband could come after him. Maybe a rabid/psychotic fan of some sports team really resents the lawyer brokering the trade of a fan favorite to a rival team. Maybe one of the office girls develops an obsession with him and snaps when he doesn't respond. Maybe he paid someone to do some of his college work and the one he paid ended up a homeless and really resents the success that the MC achieved partly on the homeless guy's work. That's off the top of my head.
He could be like famous hockey figure Alan Eagleson and using his position as a means to commit fraud against wealthy athletes.
Yes this is a real question! I wouldnt have asked this is this was a corporate or criminal attorney. I couldnt think of why someone would want to kill a ENTERTAINMENT/SPORTS attorney! Thanks to those of you who gave me some ideas!
You could have a crazed fan of one of his high-profile celebrity clients, a fan who thinks your lawyer tricked the celeb into a contract that will ruin his/her career ("Jamie could NEVER truly be anyone but The Scarlet Asp!"). That kind of motive could fit in with a Hitchcockian suspense comedy, no matter where you put the balance between the mystery/suspense and the comedy.
What Cog said would be good for an entertainment lawyer. In the realm of sport, he could be involved in a drugs case, where a well-known (fictional) athlete has been accused of taking performance-enhancing drugs prior to the Olympics. The mob have become involved, having a large amount of money placed on said athlete winning a gold medal. In some way, the lawyer is 'prosecuting' the case, and the mob needs him out of the way, as he's the only man who could prosecute the case.
A sports lawyer would not be prosecuting, especially not a drug case. A sports lawyer would represent either a player or the team owners/managers in contract matters.
In performance enhancing drugs cases he probably would 'prosecute' at the tribunal for the IOC or some such organisation. I didn't mean prosecute in the criminal sense. Certainly, that's how it works over here, with the Rio Ferdinand drugs test case a few years back. It might be different there, though.
Is it imperative that his death be related to his job? Perhaps he used the money he got from it to do something else that got him killed.
It doesn't sound to me that he has been killed, but that someone keeps threatening/trying to kill him. It sounds like the other key storyline is his romance with the female lead. That may affect the choice of motive, because the writer probably doesn't want too efficient a killer. Is that correct, Rose?
Oh yes you are 100% correct! Oh I dont want him killed at all, I just want someone to threaten his life and possibly his girlfriends life too. No I dont want the killer to be too efficient.
No I dont want him to be killed, but it doesnt have to be related to his job. I dont want him to be a bad guy either. I want him to be a protagonist along with his female lead.
My sister-in-law's brother went to prison while working as a property lawyer because he'd just gotten into the field and didn't quite understand the system yet. His partners were doing some illegal stuff with some of the more enigmatic laws and he didn't take the time to look into whether it was legal or not. For your book it's entirely possible he could screw somebody over without knowing it.
Disgruntled client is the first, obviously. Or a client could be an athlete with gambling debts that goes to prison, leaves said attorney in control of his assets while in prison. Mob wants debts paid or revenge for athlete not following through on promise to tank a game or match, they go after attorney who controls the purse strings.
Why would someone want to kill a lawyer? I think you mean Why wouldnt someone want to kill a lawyer...........
A client could feel that he messed up on a contract. He could have done everything possible (or he could have missed a loophole) and the client feels cheated. People get funny about money and contractual obligations.
I would suggest that the lawyer is being followed and harassed by a stalker of sorts because of his success. It could be a crazed ex-girlfriend who is jealous of his new high profile fashion-minded, entrepreneur fiance. Or how about an old colleague who feels he was wronged by the lawyer earlier in his career? Just some thoughts, do with them as you please.
Ok, you said you don't want him to be actually killed. But you do want someone threatening him and possibly his girlfriend. To me that sounds like a major portion of a plot, figuring out who it is right in the nick of time before he kills. This would mean it couldn't be super obvious, but that you have to have a fair amount of suspects, people who would have motivation. An ex-lover is an obvious choice, as is work associates who may have secret desires or grudges, a stalker who is unknown to the MC, a stalker who is stalking one of his clients, someone who wants something from one of his clients ( business or sports owner maybe?,) and the girlfriend herself, who may have hired someone else to do it. You have to think of it in the backwards piecing the information together by the FBI kind of way. Who would they interview first as suspects? Who might be on your MC's grudge list? Who might be on his girlfriends grudge list? All the people they know in their lives could be suspects. People who they have had brief encounters with could be suspects. Make up your grudge lists for your characters as if they were giving them to the police. This will give you a working knowledge of who the likely and unlikely suspects might be, plus you can weed out if you want it to be someone who would never be suspected.
