Conclusions: In and Beyond the Anglo-American Courts of Fact and Fiction

Abstract

The division of the world into an Anglophone region in which the legal thriller thrives and a non-Anglophone region where it is virtually non-existent mirrors the division of the world into those legal systems relying, although not exclusively, on a common law tradition and those that do not. There seems to be a direct connection between the dynamic need for constant ‘law making’ in terms of looking for precedents and acting on them, and relying on fixed statutes allowing for only minimal variations in interpretation and application. The common law tradition has brought about a trial system with a strongly adversarial system, where cases are argued in the courtroom for and against the defendant, whereas the civil law system has vested considerable authority in the prosecution as a part of the investigatory process, leaving courtroom procedure as an opportunity for far less adversarial action.