Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The murder of a skeezy financial adviser sparks questions that aim everywhere you can imagine in Multnomah County, Oregon. To hear dimwitted Jack Blackburn tell it, Billy Kramer, the chauffeur to Terrance Cogen, asked him to take Billy’s girlfriend, Cindy, home from a bar in Cogen’s Jaguar because Billy was drunk, and when Jack returned to the bar to drop off the Jag, Billy wasn’t there. That’s important because a beer glass found inside Cogen’s home with Jack’s prints links him to what turns out to be a murder scene. The case is assigned to attorney Karen Wyatt, who ever since she was framed for professional misconduct, disbarred, jailed for a year, freed, reinstated, and awarded a hefty settlement has had an eye out for other defendants in the frame. There’s no shortage of alternative suspects. Apart from all the clients Cogen swindled, his fourth wife, Rosemarie, is delighted to be spared the trouble and expense of divorcing him. And Oregon Congressman Thomas Horan, who’d gone missing just before the murder, produces the world’s unlikeliest alibi: He’d been abducted by aliens who kept him in their custody that night. Karen and her investigator, Morris Johnson, the ex-cop who arrested her four years ago, quickly tie Cogen’s misdeeds to Walter Zegda, the sociopathic second-in-command of the gang Lucifer’s Disciples. But they’re forced to tread carefully by the news that the Disciples have a mole in the Multnomah D.A.’s office and a dying message from a Disciple in the know that seems utterly useless in identifying that mole. The final surprise isn’t all that surprising, but readers who’ve been caught up in all those complications won’t mind. A stand-alone with as much energy as Margolin’s franchise tales of defense attorney Robin Lockwood. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Margolin’s daffy latest legal thriller (after An Insignificant Case) gets lost in the weeds. Corrupt officials framed Portland, Ore., attorney Karen Wyatt for cocaine possession, putting her behind bars, but she’s released early when her lawyer uncovers exonerating evidence. Three years later, a civil suit has made Karen wealthy, though she continues to work. Her latest client, Jack Blackburn, has been charged with murdering a man named Terrance Cogen by bashing in his skull. Karen’s probing quickly enmeshes her in a complicated mystery involving a congressman who claims he was abducted by aliens and the leak of sensitive information from within the local district attorney’s office to Walter Zegda, a brilliant former high school quarterback who runs a motorcycle gang. As Wyatt tries to fit the pieces together, she also seeks revenge for her own imprisonment. For a while, it’s almost exhilarating to watch Margolin add layer upon layer to the overstuffed plot, but the resolution disappoints, and a few far-fetched moves on Wyatt’s part make it hard to suspend disbelief. It’s not one of the author’s better efforts. (Nov.)