Not long after, there's another rape and the DNA test shows that the same person committed both rapes—which is seemingly impossible since the man convicted of the first rape was in prison at the time of the second one.
Now, the convicted athlete, joined by a new lawyer, is granted a new trial and bail. Shortly thereafter, his original lawyer disappears and his law partner is murdered.
Robin Lockwood is a young lawyer with a prestigious small law firm and a former MMA fighter who helped pay for Yale Law School with her bouts. She is representing the victim of the first rape for her civil lawsuit against her rapist, who is now convinced the rapist is stalking her and trying to intimidate her.
At the same time, another client is up on a murder charge—one that should be dismissed as self-defense—but the D.A. trying the case is determined to bring it to trial. Now she has to mastermind two impossible cases, trying to find the hidden truth that links the two of them.
"Gone But Not Forgotten"
The only clues to their disappearance are a single black rose and a note that reads "Gone, But Not Forgotten."
It is the rebirth of a horror that has already devastated a community at the opposite end of the country -- and, as it did then, terror and death will follow.
Defense attorney Betsy Tannenbaum is trapped in a nightmare as the shadows of a killer darken her world.
And she will soon be risking everything she has and everyone she loves to defend a cold, powerful, and manipulating client who may be a victim ... or a monster.
“Violent Crimes”
The controversy surrounding the firm is magnified tenfold when Dale is found beaten to death in his mansion. But this time Dale’s son, Brandon, is seen fleeing the scene. A dedicated eco-warrior obsessed with saving the planet, Brandon confesses to killing his father—for revenge, he claims—on behalf of all the people whose lives are being destroyed by his father’s questionable clients.
Veteran lawyer Amanda Jaffe is hired to represent Brandon, but what seems like an open-and-shut case quickly begins to unravel. If Brandon is really innocent—a radical activist determined to martyr himself for his cause—then who viciously murdered Dale Masterson? And what, if any, is the connection between his murder and the murder of Christine Larson? Smart, fierce, and unafraid of the truth even if it puts her in danger, Amanda begins to look deeper. What she finds will force the seasoned legal pro to make the hardest professional decision of her life.
“The Third Victim”
A woman stumbles onto a dark road in rural Oregon―tortured, battered, and bound. She tells a horrific story about being kidnapped, then tortured, until she finally managed to escape. She was the lucky one―two other women, with similar burns and bruises, were found dead.
The surviving victim identifies the house where she was held captive and the owner, Alex Mason―a prominent local attorney―is arrested. Although he loudly insists upon his innocence, his wife’s statements about his sexual sadism and the physical evidence found at the scene, his summer home, is damning.
Regina Barrister is a legendary criminal defense attorney, known as “The Sorceress” for her courtroom victories. But she’s got a secret, one that threatens her skill, her reputation, and, most of all, her clients. And she’s agreed to take on the seemingly impossible task of defending Alex Mason.
Robin Lockwood, a young lawyer and former MMA fighter, has just left a clerkship at the Oregon Supreme Court to work for Regina Barrister. The Alex Mason trial is her first big one, a likely death penalty case, and she’s second chair to Regina. Increasingly, she’s worried her boss’s behavior and the details in the case against their client don’t quite add up.
"Woman With a Gun"
The surviving victim identifies the house where she was held captive and the owner, Alex Mason―a prominent local attorney―is arrested. Although he loudly insists upon his innocence, his wife’s statements about his sexual sadism and the physical evidence found at the scene, his summer home, is damning.
Regina Barrister is a legendary criminal defense attorney, known as “The Sorceress” for her courtroom victories. But she’s got a secret, one that threatens her skill, her reputation, and, most of all, her clients. And she’s agreed to take on the seemingly impossible task of defending Alex Mason.
Robin Lockwood, a young lawyer and former MMA fighter, has just left a clerkship at the Oregon Supreme Court to work for Regina Barrister. The Alex Mason trial is her first big one, a likely death penalty case, and she’s second chair to Regina. Increasingly, she’s worried her boss’s behavior and the details in the case against their client don’t quite add up.
"Woman With a Gun"
New York Times bestselling master of mystery Phillip Margolin transcends his traditional territory in this haunting contemporary thriller inspired by an unforgettable photograph.
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| Loved this book. It had a number of twists and turns and wound up exactly right. |
Shot from behind, the enigmatic black-and-white image is a picture of a woman in a wedding dress, standing on the shore at night, facing the sea. Behind her back, she holds a six-shooter.
The image captures Stacey's imagination, raising a host of compelling questions. Has the woman killed her husband on their wedding night? Is she going to commit suicide? Is she waiting for someone she plans to kill?
Obsessed with finding answers, Stacey discovers that the woman in the photograph is Megan Cahill, suspected of killing her husband, millionaire Raymond Cahill, with the six-shooter on their wedding night. But the murder was never solved.
Drawn deeper into the case, Stacey finds that everyone involved has a different opinion of Megan's culpability. But the one person who may know the whole story--Kathy Moran--isn't talking. Stacey must find a way to get to the reclusive photographer or the truth may never see the light of day
This shattering novel begins with two vicious murders -- and ends in a web of corruption, lies, and twisted passions.
Richie Walters, all-American boy. Elaine Murray, cheerleader. They made the perfect couple. And that evening out at Lookout Point -- Richie fumbling at the buttons of her blouse, Elaine thrilled and terrified -- they were about to take the final step.
But the step would never be taken. Richie Walters would die that night -- die in a hot and savage ecstasy of violence. Elaine Murray too would die. But not that night. Or the next. She would live long enough to know just how lucky Richie had been...
"The Undertaker's Widow"
A cold-blooded murder. A beautiful suspect. An honest judge forced to do the unthinkable.
New York Times bestselling author Phillip Margolin is a master of legal suspense. In this explosive novel, a simple case of self-defense becomes a nightmare in which justice itself is held hostage.
Judge Richard Quinn is young, idealistic, and honest to a fault. That's why he's handed the most sensational homicide case in Oregon history. Locked in a race for the U.S. Senate, Ellen Crease gunned down the intruder who murdered her wealthy husband. In a single, brutal instant she became a widow, a victim, and a hero.
Yet disturbing questions remain. What secrets did the man who started his fortune running mortuaries keep that might have cost him his life? What about the son frozen out of his will? Or his wife's political enemies? And what about Ellen Crease herself?
"Lost Lake"
It’s a beautiful summer night in Portland Oregon. Ami Vergano, a young attorney and single mother, arrives at her son Ryan’s little league game with their tenant and new friend, Dan Morelli. When the assistant coach calls in sick, Morelli seems happy to help out. But then one player roughly blocks another, and a fight erupts. Before the game ends, Ami witnesses violence that shocks and horrifies her and makes her question everything she thought she knew about Morelli.
On the other side of the continent, in a cheap motel room in Washington DC, ex-mental patient Vanessa Kohler, a reporter for Exposed, a tabloid that specializes in alien abuduction stories, watches a piece on television about the little league massacre and quickly places a call to the FBI.
For years she’s been telling anyone who will listen about a vast government conspiracy to conceal a secret military unit headed by General Morris Wingate, a presidential candidate, and for years everyone has dismissed her stories. But when Vanessa sees Dan Morelli fighting, she believes she’s found the key to proving that her theories are true.
Vanessa hires Ami Vergano to represent Morelli, who is charged with attempted murder, and Ami is drawn into Vanessa’s paranoid world. Are Vanessa, a former mental patient, and Morelli, a confessed mass murder, telling the truth about one of the nation’s most respected soldiers and politicians? Or are their charges a product of two sick minds?
Ami has to decide who—and what—to believe in Phillip Margolin’s most exciting and surprising thriller since his breakout bestseller, Gone, But Not Forgotten.
Margolin talks about his series of books in this video.
"Sleight of Hand"
New York Times bestselling author Phillip Margolin has written another winner with his newest standalone legal thriller SLEIGHT OF HAND - releasing April 9. Margolin brings back fan favorite P.I. Dana Cutler from his Washington Trilogy series (Executive Privilege, Supreme Justice and Capitol Murder) to take down a charismatic lawyer who frames a millionaire client for his own cold-blooded crimes.
Charles Benedict—criminal defense lawyer, amateur magician, and professional hit man—and Private Investigator Dana Cutler are on a collision course set in motion by Benedict’s greatest sleight of hand trick yet: framing a millionaire for the murder of his much younger wife.
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| Pioneer Square in Portland |
Meanwhile, private investigator Dana Cutler is in the Pacific Northwest on the trail of a stolen relic, a medieval scepter dating from the Ottoman Empire. Hitting a dead end sends her back to Virginia perplexed and disappointed—yet, the jewel-encrusted specter may be the key to the twisting case of Horace and Carrie Blair.
Dana Cutler, the tough and gutsy private investigator from his popular Washington Trilogy (Executive Privilege, Supreme Justice and Capitol Murder), is compelling and sharp and a pleasure to read. Charles Benedict is one of the more interesting villains Margolin has created. He’s a slick, vital attorney with money to burn, but a psychopathic killer with a taste for blood. He’s the perfect catalyst for suspense and drama.
"Proof Positive"
Doug Weaver is a defense attorney who always believes the best of his clients, and Jacob Cohen, on trial for murder, is no exception. Jacob may be homeless and mentally ill, but Doug can't imagine that this meek and intensely religious man could have killed and dismembered a woman. Yet Bernard Cashman, a forensic expert at the Oregon State Crime Lab, finds evidence that indisputably connects Cohen with the crime.
Frustrated and confused, Doug consults Amanda Jaffe, star of Margolin's spine-tingler Wild Justice. Amanda and her father, Frank, are working on a case that seems completely unrelated—gangster Art Prochaska is accused of murdering an informer. When Amanda starts looking too closely at the seemingly air-tight evidence in these two apparently unconnected cases, people start to die—and she discovers that a madman with the power to alter the truth is on the loose.
From the author whose writing the Chicago Tribune called "twisted and brilliant" and hailed by Lisa Scottoline as "genuinely surprising," Proof Positive promises an unbeatable combination of inside-CSI detail and intriguing insights into the minds of criminals and the attorneys who defend them—and, of course, the plot twists, stay-up-all-night suspense, and gasp-inducing surprises that are Phillip Margolin's undisputed trademark.
"Supreme Justice"
Sarah Woodruff, on death row in Oregon for murdering her lover, John Finley, has appealed her case to the Supreme Court just when a prominent justice resigns, leaving a vacancy.
Then, for no apparent reason, another justice is mysteriously attacked. Dana Cutler—one of the heroes from Margolin's bestselling Executive Privilege—is quietly called in to investigate. She looks for links between the Woodruff appeal and the ominous incidents in the justices' chambers, which eventually lead her to a shoot-out that took place years ago on a small freighter docked upriver in Shelby, Oregon, containing a dead crew and illegal drugs. The only survivor on board? John Finley.
With the help of Brad Miller and Keith Evans, Dana uncovers a plot by a rogue element in the American intelligence community involving the president's nominee to the Supreme Court, and soon the trio is thrown back into the grips of a deadly, executive danger.
With nonstop action, Supreme Justice picks up where Executive Privilege left off, putting readers right back where they were—on the edge of their seats.
"Ties That Bind"
Success is fleeting; nobody knows this better than lawyer Amanda Jaffe, She had been the undisputed rising star of Portland's legal community, but in a cruel twist of irony, the same case that put her on the map -- the Cardoni trial, which pitted Amanda against a brilliant sociopath (in the New York Times bestseller "Wild Justice ) -- had left her traumatized, doubting her instincts, and shunning the limelight.
This reticence ends when Amanda agrees to handle the case no one else will touch. Jon Dupre, who runs an upscale call-girl service, is accused of murdering a U.S. senator. Dupre claims to possess proof of the existence of a secret society of powerful men who have banded together for a commonly held political agenda. The rite of passage that binds them together -- the initiation into this powerful brotherhood -- is murder.
To Amanda these seem the desperate claims of a man who will lie to save his own skin -- until she is pressured to walk away from the case. Determined to put a knife in the heart of the fear and psychological trauma that has plagued her ever since Cardoni, she refuses to abandon her investigation. It's a decision that will place her and those she loves directly in the path of a deadly juggernaut with ambitions that extend all the way to the presidency of the United States.
"Capitol Murder"
Private investigator Dana Cutler and attorney Brad Miller have overcome more than a few daunting challenges and powerful enemies to see justice done. Against tremendous odds, they successfully unmasked an American president's involvement in a chain of murders. They also saved the life of a Supreme Court justice while foiling a conspiracy by rogue members of the CIA to fix a case headed for the court.
Now wicked threats old and new are about to bring them together once again. Convicted serial killer Clarence Little has escaped from death row in Oregon, and Brad receives threatening messages in D.C., where he is working for Senator Jack Carson, a high-ranking member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
A dead body, murdered according to Little's M.O., is found in the senator's Georgetown home, and Carson has disappeared. While Dana is in Oregon digging into Carson's shady background, a terrorist cell is poised to destroy a packed professional football stadium in one of the biggest attacks on American soil. As the senator's personal life begins to dovetail with the cell's evil plan, Brad and Dana will risk it all again to uncover the truth and save their country.
Phillip Margolin proves once more that he is a true master of suspense, delivering another high-octane thriller set in Washington's legendary corridors of power. Capitol Murder's breathtaking pace and electrifying twists will have old fans and newcomers racing to the final, stunning page.
Ashley Spencer’s life is shattered when a killer enters her home one night, brutally stabs her father to death, and rapes and murders her best friend. In an attempt to help her regain some stability, her mother enrolls Ashley in the prestigious Oregon Academy.
Ashley’s mother seeks diversion by taking a creative writing class from former best-selling author Joshua Maxfield, who startles her by reading a chapter from a work in progress that mirrors the murder of her husband.
The twists and turns of the plot keep the suspense ratcheted up to an excruciating level. Using the law and an insider’s knowledge of the writer’s life, Margolin has created another sure winner.
His first novel, "Gone but Not Forgotten," has long been one of the hallmark novels dealing with serial killers and their’ motivation. In this work, Margolin has brought new life to that subgenre.
This is for jaded readers who believe that there is nothing new and fresh in the mystery field.
"The Associate"
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| The Benson Hotel in Portland |
A poster boy for the American Dream, former blue collar boy turned high-powered lawyer Daniel Ames is on easy street as an associate at Reed, Briggs, Portland's most prestigious law firm.
Until one man...and one case...changes everything.
When a charismatic lawyer sues the firm's biggest client, a pharmaceutical company, for manufacturing a drug that causes unspeakable birth defects, Daniel believes the case has no merit.
But when information implicating company malfeasance surfaces, the intrepid lawyer doggedly scrambles to find the truth--an investigation that leads him into a vortex of greed, corruption, deceit, and murder.
Suddenly caught on the wrong side of the law and in the crosshairs of a powerful enemy, Daniel must unmask an evil conspiracy that wants to bury a deadly secret...and Daniel with it.
"Fugitive"
Amanda Jaffe, the heroine of WILD JUSTICE and PROOF POSITIVE, is back—in this twisting tale of international intrigue and murder that leads her deep into the past… and into the crosshairs of a killer.
Charlie Marsh, a petty thief and con man, becomes a national hero when he rescues the warden of a state penitentiary during a prison riot, but it doesn't take long before he is wanted again, suspected of killing a United States congressman.
After twelve years of living in the African nation of Batanga, at the mercy of Jean-Claude Baptiste, a sadistic, power-mad dictator, Charlie flees for home to face his murder charge, when Baptiste learns about Charlie's affair with the tyrant's favorite wife.
But it's not just the state of Oregon that's got it in for the philandering con. Criminal lawyer Amanda Jaffe has her work cut out for her. She must keep Charlie off death row, protect him from the head of Baptiste's deadly secret police, and prevent him from being caught by a shadowy killer who will stop at nothing to keep the truth about a decade-old crime buried forever.
"The Burning Man"
Peter Hale is a young attorney struggling to make his own mark in his father's venerable law firm when he is presented with the opportunity of a ifetime.
During the trial of a multimillion-dollar case, Peter's father, the lead counsel, suffers a heart attack and asks Peter to move for a mistrial until he's feeling better. Peter decides this is his only chance to prove to his father that he is the terrific lawyer he knows himself to be, and he chooses to carry on with the case against his father's wishes. In his zeal to prove himself, Peter neglects his client and ends up losing everything--the case, his job, and his father.
Unemployed and disinherited, Peter takes the only job he is offered--that of a public defender in a small Oregon town. He hopes that if he can make good there, he can reinstate himself in his father's good graces. But his ambition again gets the best of him when he takes on a death-penalty case, representing a mentally retarded man accused of the brutal hatchet murder of a college coed.
"Worthy Brown's Daughter"
One of a handful of lawyers in the new state of Oregon, recently widowed Matthew Penny agrees to help Worthy Brown, a newly freed slave, rescue his fifteen year old daughter, Roxanne, from their former master, a powerful Portland lawyer.
Worthy's lawsuit sets in motion events that lead to Worthy's arrest for murder and create an agonizing moral dilemma that could send either Worthy or Matthew to the hangman.
At the same time, hanging judge Jed Tyler, a powerful politician with a barren personal life, becomes infatuated with a beautiful gold-digger who is scheming to murder Benjamin Gillette, Oregon's wealthiest businessman.
When Gillette appears to die from natural causes, Sharon Hill produces a forged contract of marriage and Tyler must decide if he will sacrifice his reputation to defend that of the woman who inspired his irrational obsession.
At Worthy's trial, Matthew saves Worthy by producing a stunning courtroom surprise and his attempt to stop the deadly fortune hunter ends in a violent climax.
He's in way over his head, and it's only when Peter realizes that his greed and his ego may end up killing his client that he begins to understand what it really takes to be a good lawyer--and to become a man.
The Chicago Tribune said "It takes a really crafty storyteller to put people on the edge of their seats and keep them there. But Phillip Margolin does just that." In The Burning Man, with its intricate plotting, legal intrigue, and many twists and surprises, Phillip Margolin has done it again.
