1943. He wrote by hand on yellow legal pads. In 1951, his second novel, Danny and the Boys was published, followed by Small Town D.A. in 1954. These three autobiographical books focused on legal themes and did not sell very well. After Small Town D.A., Voelker said that he "wanted to write [about] 'a criminal trial the way it really was.'" He selected the Peterson murder trial from 1952. He wrote Anatomy of a Murder in three months and received an acceptance letter from a publisher in December 1956 just days before he was appointed to the Michigan Supreme Court. The book was the first to portray both the preparation and trial phases of a legal case, creating a new genre of fiction. The novel was chosen as the January 1958 Book-of-the-Month Club main selection, and it was listed on The New York Times Bestseller list for 62 weeks. In The New York Times, reviewer Orville Prescott called it "immensely readable and continuously entertaining" and noted Voelker's "unflagging invention and narrative pace". Otto Preminger purchased the movie rights to Anatomy of a Murder in April 1958. Filming started in March 1959 on location in the Upper Peninsula; the director was convinced by his scouts to film the entire movie on location, the first time a movie was filmed entirely in that fashion. Voelker's home office was used as one of the filming locations, as was the Marquette County Courthouse. The book used quotations from actual testimony in the original 1952 trial, and the movie did as well, helping to bring an end to the strict censorship of motion pictures under the Hays Code. In addition to its on-location filming, Duke Ellington wrote part of the movie's score in Ishpeming. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards in 1960, but did not win any. The movie premiered in Ishpeming and Marquette on June 29, 1959, followed by its world premier in Detroit on July 1. The movie was critically acclaimed. Bosley Crowther, film critic for The New York Times said, "it is the best courtroom melodrama this old judge has ever seen", and the American Bar Association rated this as one of the 12 best trial films of all time. Financially secure from his writing, Voelker resigned from the Michigan Supreme Court, telling Governor Williams, "other people can write my opinions, but none can write my books. I have learned