Betrayal: A Robin Lockwood Novel

by Phillip Margolin

Overview

In Phillip Margolin's Betrayal, attorney Robin Lockwood finds herself defending her old nemesis in a multiple murder case with too many suspects, where success might cost her own life.

Robin Lockwood is now a prominent defense attorney in Portland, Oregon but a decade ago, she was a ranked and rising MMA fighter. Her career came to a quick end when she was knocked out and concussed in the first round by Mandy Kerrigan, a much more talented fighter.

Now the situation couldn't be more different, with Kerrigan on her last legs, her career nearly over, arrested for the quadruple murder of the entire Finch family...and Kerrigan's only possible friend is the attorney she beat so many years ago.

For Robin, it's no simple case: Margaret Finch was a lawyer working for vicious Russian mobsters, and was in the cross-hairs of both the mobsters and the widower of a woman a client killed; her husband Nathan Finch was deeply in debt to a bookie who threatened his life; her son Ryan was the one who sold Kerrigan illegal performance enhancing drugs and was beaten severely by her when Kerrigan failed her drug test. To complicate matters further, the DA that Robin is facing is the man she's just started dating, the first person she's begun seeing seriously after her husband was killed.

In a case where the stakes are high and the truth is elusive, where each new fact twists the case in a new direction, there is seemingly no way to win or direction to turn that will leave Robin Lockwood unscathed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798891640122
Publisher:	Center Point
Publication date:	02/01/2024
Edition description:	Large Print
Pages:	500
Product dimensions:	5.75(w) x 8.66(h) x 1.26(d)

About the Author

PHILLIP MARGOLIN has written over twenty-five novels, most of them New York Times bestsellers, including Gone But Not Forgotten, Lost Lake, and Violent Crimes. In addition to being a novelist, he was a long time criminal defense attorney with decades of trial experience, including a large number of capital cases. Margolin lives in Portland, Oregon.

Place of Birth:

New York, New York

Education:

B.A. in Government, American University, 1965; New York University School of Law, 1970

Editorial Reviews

09/25/2023

In Margolin’s magnetic seventh mystery featuring the MMA fighter turned Portland, Ore., criminal defense attorney (after 2022’s Murder at Black Oaks), Robin takes on the case of a former rival charged with murdering a family of four. When fading MMA star Mandy Kerrigan calls Robin after she’s arrested for the brutal killings of the Finch family, she feels duty-bound to help—Mandy’s sound defeat of Robin in an MMA match years earlier led her to pursue the legal education that launched her career. Though Mandy maintains her innocence, witnesses saw her banging on the door of the Finch family home after beating up the Finch’s oldest son, Ryan, at a bar when the performance-enhancing drugs he sold her showed up on a drug test. As Robin’s team prepares their case, they learn that Ryan’s lawyer mother, Margaret, was representing Russian mobsters accused of orchestrating an insurance fraud scam complete with staged accidents and sketchy doctors. By pulling that thread, Robin is convinced she’ll find answers about the Finches’ enemies that divert blame from Mandy. Robin’s sharp intellect and steadfast integrity make her easy to root for, and Margolin keeps the suspense at a steady simmer. Series fans and newcomers alike will be sucked in. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"Series fans and newcomers alike will be sucked in." —Publisher's Weekly

"Suspenseful...perfect for fans of John Grisham and Scott Turow." —Booklist

"Robin Lockwood is one of my favorite characters to read every year." —Red Carpet Crash

"Quite the twister!" —BookReporter

"Suspense that will keep the readers guessing to the very end." —Military Press

""Betrayal spirits us along a twisty turny road in a breezy style that belies a dark undercurrent at the story’s heart...Margolin is every bit the equal of Grisham’s, Turow’s, and Michael Connelly’s Lincoln Lawyer series...a great book that will answer the cravings of any legal thriller fan."" —BookTrib

From the Publisher

2023-08-23
Portland attorney Robin Lockwood butts heads awkwardly with her latest beau, deputy D.A. Tom McKee, in the case of the West Hills Massacre.

A neighbor spots Mandy Kerrigan, a former world champion in Mixed Martial Arts, raising a ruckus outside the Finch family’s door a few minutes past 8 p.m. Half an hour later, when Arthur Proctor, Annie Finch’s English teacher, enters the house to discuss the teenager's possible transfer to a private school, he finds the whole family shot to death. The police are too satisfied with the likely guilt of Mandy, who’d just beaten up 20-something Ryan Finch in front of witnesses for supplying her with detection-proof performance-enhancing drugs that a post-match screening easily detected, to seek out other suspects. But Robin, who takes a personal interest in the case because Mandy thrashed her in an MMA match 10 years ago, quickly finds a multitude of both suspects and possible primary targets. Margaret Finch has long served as the go-to attorney for Jack Kovalev, the Russian mobster whose repeated car-accident insurance scams have recently been threatened with exposure. Her chemist husband, Nathan, had been fired from King Pharmaceuticals after embezzling funds to cover his gambling debts to importunate bookmaker Mario Messina. Even Annie was a 14-year-old cyberbully whose online taunts had reportedly led her classmate Donna Faber to suicide. Yet another wild card is CPA Alan Chen, a Special Forces veteran who vowed revenge after his wife was killed in the latest accident Kovalev staged. The actual murderer isn’t especially surprising, but it’s still satisfying to see Robin defeat her secret lover in court and come out on top.

Dependable thrills, spills, and courtroom maneuvers.

Kirkus Reviews