"The Darkest Place", by Phillip Margolin

Robin Lockwood book #5

A Legal Thriller

I haven’t read the previous novels so I was apprehensive plunging into the unknown with this latest. No need to worry, the stories we follow meshed beautifully and little background needed to follow what happened in the past to move forward and enjoy these captivating legal battles.

In this latest: we are deep into two cases

Robin Lockwood a well-respected defense attorney in Portland, Oregon, goes home to Elk Grove, a farming community in the Midwest recuperating after she suffered a personal tragedy and needed a well-deserved rest.

The first case:

But rest was not to be, soon after her arrival, an old friend and local lawyer asked for her help defending Marjorie Loman accused of kidnapping a baby for whom she was a surrogate and assaulting the adoptive parents. But this was not her only problem.

The second case:

Marjorie had also an arrest warrant in connection with the murder of her husband in Oregon. Robin decided to represent her if Marjorie was found not guilty on her first charge.

In the two stories we go back in time and read what lead to Marjorie’s troubles.

My thoughts:

There is constantly building suspense as the two separate cases resolved and of course the denouement is a complete surprise. The plots are intricate, written with some clever twists. When an error was committed by the nurse when Marjorie gave birth resulting in a psychosis and post-partum problems associated with surrogacy, Robin used amazing tactics to highlight the problems in court. Not only the court proceedings are vividly said through expert voices what comes out from their testimonies are quite informative and eye-opening.

The author knows his way around a courtroom his skills make legal trials fascinating. This is definitely a page-turner very hard to put down. Mr. Margolin does an excellent job developing his characters. The novel is well-written and absolutely spellbinding

I had the opportunity to read and review this book from St-Martin Press via Netgalley for my thoughts: this is the way I see it.