From Library Journal
Playing off the spookiness of recent recovered memory trials, Margolin, in his fifth thriller (e.g., After Dark, LJ 3/15/95), layers the good, the bad, and the ugly of lawyering into a crackling tale of redemption for two young men. The tale is set in Eastern Oregon, where a mildly retarded man is charged with the brutal slaying of a young woman. His lawyer, having never tried a capital crime case before, fumbles badly, but a glimmer of native wit gets him back on track. Working the genre with a discipline some popular authors have begun to ignore, Margolin relies on a few crafty stereotypes to keep up the pace and simplify the action. The dialogs in the jailhouse and the interrogation scenes, though, are intense and fierce. The moral zigzags of desperate people are laid out to contrast with the lawyer and his client as they feint and weave to avoid the ultimate penalty. This is a can't-go-wrong choice for popular collections.?Barbara Conaty, Library of Congress
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Margolin may well be the Danielle Steel of mysteries. His books have the same trite but oh-so-true characters, familiar but nonetheless gripping plots, consummately bad villains, and perfectly flawed heroes. Young attorney Peter Hale, spoiled, conceited, and with a perpetual chip on his shoulder, wants to prove he's as good a lawyer as his father. So when Dad suffers a heart attack, Peter takes on one of the old man's toughest cases and ends up costing a paralyzed woman her million-dollar settlement. Furious, the senior Hale writes Peter out of his will and exiles him to a small town to work as a public defender. Peter doesn't know which is worse, not having his cappucino machine or dealing with nasty criminals. So he goes behind his new boss' back (Won't this guy ever learn?) and takes on the defense of a retarded man accused of murder. If Peter loses the case, the accused goes to Death Row, but if he wins, it's a chance to redeem himself in Dad's eyes. Of course, things go wrong from the git-go, and Peter's stupidity nearly ruins everything. But finally, from the depths of his jerky little soul, something worthwhile emerges. With terrific courtroom scenes, great lawyerly dialogue, and a plot that won't quit, Margolin's latest is sure to parallel a Danielle Steel novel in one more way: bankable mass-market appeal.
Emily Melton
