Phillip Margolin

Escaping from a kidnapping that has left two other women dead, the burned and battered "third victim" identifies hotshot local attorney Alex Mason as the culprit. With physical evidence and a damning statement from Mason's wife, the case appears virtually solved. What complicates things: Mason's brilliant defense attorney, Regina Barrister, is carrying around a deep, dark secret, and second-in-command Robin Lockwood is bothered by her boss's erratic behavior and aspects of the case that don't make sense.

A Novel

The Third Victim

The “master of heart-pounding suspense”—New York Times bestseller Phillip Margolin—returns with a new legal thriller starring Robin Lockwood. A young woman accuses a prominent local college athlete of rape. Convicted with the help of undisputable DNA evidence, the athlete swears his innocence and threatens both his lawyer and his accuser as he's sent to prison. 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. Phillip Margolin, the master of the legal thriller, returns in one of his twistiest, most compelling crime novels yet.

The Perfect Alibi

A Robin Lockwood Novel

Murder at Black Oaks

Defense attorney Robin Lockwood faces an unimaginable personal disaster and her greatest professional challenge in the next New York Times bestselling Phillip Margolin's new legal thriller, The Darkest Place. Robin Lockwood is an increasingly prominent defense attorney in the Portland community. A Yale graduate and former MMA fighter, she's becoming known for her string of innovative and successful defense strategies. As a favor to a judge, Robin takes on the pro bono defense of a reprehensible defendant charged with even more reprehensible crimes. But what she doesn't know—what she can't know—is how this one decision, this one case, will wreak complete devastation on her life and plans. As she recovers from those consequences, Robin heads home to her small town of Elk Grove and the bosom of her family. As she tries to recuperate, a unique legal challenge presents itself—Marjorie Loman, a surrogate, is accused of kidnapping the baby she carried for another couple, and assaulting that couple in the process. There's no question that she committed these actions but that's not the same as being guilty of the crime. As Robin works to defend her client, she learns that Marjorie Loman has been hiding under a fake identity and is facing a warrant for her arrest for another, even more serious crime. And buried within the truth may once again be unexpected, deadly consequences.

The Darkest Place

Taking a simple assignment to report on the activities of a college student, private detective Dana Cutler is forced to flee for her life when the student is murdered, while junior lawyer Brad Miller discovers strange coincidences between Dana's case anda

Executive Privilege

A ten-year-old New York case involving disappearing wives, supposedly solved, returns to haunt Portland, Oregon, as the D.A. embarks on a manhunt for a killer and feminist defense attorney Betsy Tannenbaum is hired by a wealthy developer. Reprint.

Gone, But Not Forgotten

Seven years ago, Phillip Margolin seized the imagination of thriller readers everywhere with his chilling breakout bestseller, Gone, but Not Forgotten. After five subsequent New York Times bestsellers, Margolin now returns to the haunting terrain of Gone, but Not Forgotten with a mesmerizing tour de force of psychological suspense, an electrifying tale of revenge and retribution that shows a master storyteller at the very peak of his craft. Thursday: Subject is still combative after four days of applied pain, sleep deprivation and minimal food. Vice squad detective Bobby Vasquez, for months on the trail of a slippery underworld figure, receives an anonymous tip that directs him to a mountain cabin. He races through the idyllic Oregon woods, expecting to close the book on a long-standing vendetta. What he finds instead opens a Pandora's box of horror that will haunt him to his dying day. 8:10: Subject bound and gaffed and placed in upstairs closet at end of hall. Turned out lights in house, drove off, then parked and doubled back. Watched from woods. Within hours, Vincent Cordoni -- a brilliant surgeon with a history of violence and drug abuse -- is arrested for a heinous crime. Facing a seemingly insurmountable wall of evidence, he turns to Portland's top criminal defense attorney, Frank Jaffe-who, along with his ambitious daughter, Amanda, must put on an inspired defense. Amanda's first taste of criminal defense work is as intoxicating as it is chilling, but it raises moral questions she's loath to address. Is she defending an innocent man? Or is she using her considerable skills to set a monster free? Then Cardoni disappears under bizarre circumstances. Four years later, a second set of murders has begun .... 8:55: Subject exits house, naked and barefoot, armed with kitchen knife. Remarkable strength of character. Breaking her will be a challenge. Has Cardoni resurfaced to ply his deadly trade anew? Is there a copycat killer? Or has the real killer been someone else all along? The police will do everything they can to stop Cardoni -- but they have to find him first. Following a twisting trail of clues, including a harrowing diary that clinically records the killer's horrible deeds, Amanda Jaffe and Bobby Vasquez join the hunt-and themselves become targets of the twenty-first century's first genuinely monstrous psychopath. :

Wild Justice

Executive privilege

Fearing that his otherwise brilliant performances in the courtroom are setting killers and rapists free, attorney David Nash finds a chance for personal redemption in a client who is actually innocent. Reprint.

The Last Innocent Man

Private investigator Dana Cutler must take down a cunning psychopath before he can pull off the perfect crime, in Sleight of Hand, a novel of suspense from Phillip Margolin, New York Times bestselling author of Capitol Murder and Supreme Justice. Charles Benedict – charismatic criminal defense lawyer, amateur illusionist, and professional hit man – has performed his greatest sleight of hand yet: framing a millionaire for the murder of his much younger wife. When Horace Blair married Carrie, the prosecutor in his DUI trial, he made her sign a prenuptial agreement guaranteeing her twenty million dollars if she remained faithful for the first ten years of marriage. Just one week before their tenth anniversary, Carrie disappears, and Horace is charged with her murder. Desperate to clear his name, the millionaire hires D.C.’s most ruthless defense lawyer – Charles Benedict. P.I. Dana Cutler is in the Pacific Northwest on the trail of a stolen relic dating from the Ottoman Empire. Hitting a dead end sends her back to Virginia perplexed and disappointed – and straight into the case of Horace and Carrie Blair. Now Dana must conjure a few tricks of her own to expose Benedict’s plot, before he can work his deadly magic on her...

A Novel of Suspense

Sleight of Hand

A magician linked to three murders and suspicious deaths years ago disappears in the middle of his new act in New York Times bestseller Phillip Margolin’s latest thriller featuring Robin Lockwood Robin Lockwood is a young criminal defense attorney and partner in a prominent law firm in Portland, Oregon. A former MMA fighter and Yale Law graduate, she joined the firm of legal legend Regina Barrister not long before Regina was forced into retirement by early onset Alzheimer’s. One of Regina’s former clients, Robert Chesterfield, shows up in the law office with an odd request—he’s seeking help from his old attorney in acquiring patent protection for an illusion. Chesterfield is a professional magician of some reknown and he has a major new trick he’s about to debut. This is out of the scope of the law firm’s expertise, but when Robin Lockwood looks into his previous relationship with the firm, she learns that twenty years ago he was arrested for two murders, one attempted murder, and was involved in the potentially suspicious death of his very rich wife. At the time, Regina Barrister defended him with ease, after which he resumed his career as a magician in Las Vegas. Now, decades later, he debuts his new trick—only to disappear at the end. He’s a man with more than one dark past and many enemies—is his disappearance tied to one of the many people who have good reason to hate him? Was he killed and his body disposed of, or did he use his considerable skills to engineer his own disappearance? Robin Lockwood must unravel the tangled skein of murder and bloody mischief to learn how it all ties together.

A Reasonable Doubt

A top county prosecutor from Oregon is accused of murdering her estranged husband, Justice Robert Griffen, soon after the mysterious death of Griffen's female law clerk

After Dark

Inspired by a true story, New York Times bestselling author Phillip Margolin turns his hand to historical fiction in this masterful saga about justice in the American West. Like thousands of other Americans in the nineteenth century, Matthew Penny, a young lawyer, believes that he and his wife, Rachel, can forge a better future out West. But after she drowns on the Oregon Trail, Matthew arrives on the frontier with nothing but shattered dreams. Unable to face the memories that await back home, he joins the handful of lawyers practicing in Portland, Oregon—which in 1860 is just a riverfront town in a state less than a year old. Worthy Brown, a slave from Georgia, journeys west with his master, Caleb Barbour, who promises to reward Worthy and his daughter, Roxanne, with their freedom if they help him establish a homestead in Oregon. When Barbour reneges on his pledge, Worthy’s hope for a fresh start with his child is destroyed. In the hands of critically acclaimed thriller writer Phillip Margolin, the fates of these desperate men intertwine in a breathtaking narrative about the extent of evil and the high price of true justice. Matthew and Worthy decide to challenge Barbour in court, but events rapidly spiral out of their control and the stakes become higher than either of them could ever have imagined. And when Matthew, struggling to survive in the cutthroat, corrupt world of frontier law, crosses paths with Heather Gillette, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy Portland businessman, his grief-stricken existence is turned upside down, and suddenly he has everything to fight for. Over two decades in the writing, Worthy Brown’s Daughter is a compelling white-knuckle drama about two broken men risking everything for what they believe in. Powerfully evocative of time and place, woven through with rich historical detail, it charts new territory for Margolin—but its epic, deeply human scope is still defined by the suspense and energy his fans have come to expect from his books.

Worthy Brown's Daughter

Filled with the fast-paced twists and surprises that propelled "Executive Privilege, Supreme Justice" reunites attorney Brad Miller, FBI agent Keith Evans, and private investigator Dana Cutler to untangle a five-year-old case involving a ghost ship and the president's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Supreme Justice

When all-American teenager Richie Walters is brutally murdered by a sadistic killer, along with his girlfriend, cheerleader Elaine Murray, the other inhabitants of the town become entangled in a web of corruption, lies, and death. Reprint.

Heartstone

On a summer night in Portland, Oregon, violence erupts at a Little League game -- and attorney Ami Vergano watches in horror as the quiet, gentle artist she recently befriended does the unexpected and unthinkable . . . In a cheap motel room in Washington, D.C., Vanessa Kohler -- ex-mental patient, supermarket tabloid reporter, and estranged daughter of a powerful general running for president -- views a news broadcast of the bizarre incident and believes she's found the only witness to a deadly conspiracy. Caught between a possible madwoman and a confessed mass murderer, between reality and delusion, Ami races to unearth the terrible truth about dark events that may or may never have happened twenty years earlier in a secluded cabin on Lost Lake.

Lost Lake

In this mesmerizing tale of suspense from New York Times bestselling author Phillip Margolin, attorney Amanda Jaffe—star of Wild Justice, Ties That Bind, Proof Positive, and Fugitive—becomes entangled in a murder case involving Big Oil, an estranged father and son, and the greatest ethical dilemma of her career . Dale Masterson, senior partner in a large Portland, Oregon, law firm, has become wealthy and successful representing the interests of oil and coal companies. When his colleague, Christine Larson, is found dead, Masterson’s business practices are put under surveillance and a lower-level employee stands accused. 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.

An Amanda Jaffe Novel

Violent Crimes

Ami Margolin Rome

In Portland, Oregon, between soccer games and beginning seventh grade, twelve-year-old Madison Kincaid and new classmate Jake try to track down her missing best friend, while also helping her attorney father solve a missing-persons case.

Vanishing Acts

An arrogant attorney attempts to improve his character by becoming the public defender of a retarded man on trial for murder

Phillip Margolin

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