Phillip Margolin returns with another excellent legal thriller, and the first novel to star Robin Lockwood.
If you're familiar with Margolin's other works, then you'll know what to expect from THE THIRD VICTIM: an intelligent, well-constructed legal thriller. The characters are very well-drawn, especially Lockwood (a young lawyer who's second chair to another lawyer who seems to be acting... strangely). The story is told at a good pace, although like Margolin's other novels it's not a breakneck pace (and is all the better for it).

A must for fans of legal thrillers of any kind. Recommended.

I totally enjoyed Phillip Margolin's newest novel. This was a fast paced legal thriller with lots of twists and turns. Margolin is an author that I love to read and cannot wait for his books to be published. Thank you for the advanced copy.

This book wasn’t for me. I decided not to review it on my site or any of the major retailers/Goodreads.

Review featured at www.books-n-kisses.com

3.5 Hearts I have to say that I haven’t read anything like this before and while part of me is on the fence that is what gave it that extra half star.

Margolin has an interesting way of writing this story. Some seems to be thrown in like characters and such but the storyline was interesting enough to make me want to know what was going on and how it would end. Both Regina and Robin are really interesting characters and I think any fan of Margolin will enjoy the story. But if you haven’t read Margolin before this would not be the first story I recommended by him.

Disclaimer:
I received a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

The Third VIctim by Philip Margolin is a different and intriguing novel. Basically the story begins when a young lawyer goes to work for one of the best attorneys in Portland. What makes this book so interesting and worthwhile to read is the second and in the beginning not to obvious mystery. The book is not light reading but raises serious concerns about health issues. I enjoyed this book and recommend it to every one.

Minotaur Books and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of The Third Victim. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

As far as legal thrillers go, The Third Victim includes some of the classic elements that will keep readers on the edge of their seats. Much of the investigative work and courtroom details are very realistic, giving the book a certain amount of legitimacy. The problem that I had is that the author raises red flags very early into The Third Victim, so I spent much of the novel waiting to see if my predictions were correct. Despite a few twist and turns, the compelling nature of the criminal story and the personal one does not come through.

That being said, there is something about main character Robin Lockwood that I liked. The author only scratched the surface of this complicated and driven woman, so I would be interested in reading more stories featuring her. The Third Victim was a good mystery/legal thriller and I would recommend it to those who are fans of the genre.

Good thriller, held my interest. The plot was ok, some a little over the top, but not enough to stop one from reading. The plot is classic, there are murders, one attempted murder. But, this lady escapes. This sets up the book. What pulls you in is the lengths people will go to for what they want. Presented in such a way, that now you are hooked. I can see where they probaly will be a second book and I for one will read it. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest review.

The Third Victim is a pretty straightforward legal type thriller with few surprises. Thrillers that focus on the court case, or legal aspects surrounding a case are usually not my favorite, but the book's blurb sounded so intriguing that I decided to give this one a shot, and I'm glad I did. 

There are essentially two storylines happening at the same time, one where Alex Mason is being tried for the murder of two women and the kidnapping and torture of a third, and one where a crooked cop beats up prostitutes but evades the law because of his job as a police officer. Personally, it was pretty easy for me to see how these two cases would intertwine, but I wont give anything away for other readers. 

What I loved about this book was Robin. She was smart and sharp, and along with working on these cases, is concerned about her new boss' increasingly forgetful behavior. That element of the book made Robin seem more real, and I enjoyed getting to know her character. 

Without giving anything away, I will say that I found the book to be a little bit predictable, but that it ultimately didn't take away from my enjoyment of the book. I rated this one 3.5 stars, and would recommend this one to fans of straightforward thrillers, or thrillers with a legal aspect. The book left off at a great place, but I wouldn't hesitate to read more books about Robin's future cases!

I received this book as an ARC from netgalley.com for an honest review. I have always loved Phillip Margolin's books since I read Gone, But Not Forgotten. In this book, I found it interesting to read but was let down. I had figured out about one third into the book who was one of the culprits in this murder mystery novel which I truly do not like. So, for that fact I gave the book three stars. I still enjoyed reading the book. It was very fast moving with subplots but disappointed how easily I was able to pick out one of the culprits so soon into the book.

Before diving into my review of Phillip Margolin's The Third Victim, I'd like to talk about my "process" (as if you care-insert eye roll here). How presumptuous to assume you give a crap about my "process". But... since you're here I might as well let you know.

As some may know, I write book reviews. I love writing book reviews because I love reading books. Admittedly, my reviews are far from any literary masterful analysis that is in abundance here on this site. I love reading those types of reviews and aspire to someday change someones life with my intellectual, insightful review. That ain't happening no time soon.

See? I'm already off subject. I'm supposed to talk about my process.

So...

I often find myself between books and it's usually because I have so many to choose from. After writing a review for a novel I thoroughly enjoyed, I began reading three books. This happened to be one of them. But since I feel my Goodreads currently-reading shelf is full at 4 or 5 books. I decided to do a couple soft starts. Soft starts are the ones I begin but don't commit to just yet on my currently reading shelf. Reviewers and book polygamist know what I mean. This is how I began The Third Victim. Ironically it was the third book I chose to soft start before committing to one.

That's my process in a nutshell. Although I didn't intend to commit to this novel next, I ultimately finished this book over the weekend which is unprecedented in my current life. Balancing full-time work, part-time student life, and just trying to live in between those moments, it takes me forever to read a book.

Margolin's The Third Victim is an easy read. It's seriously uncomplicated and my 3-star rating might be generous. It's more of a 2.5.

Why you ask?

Well... we're introduced to the third victim as she escapes the cabin of a deranged, sadistic nut job. She's taken to the hospital and tells her story. Meanwhile, Robin Lockwood has been hired after finished her clerkship to work for one of the toughest, most successful lawyers in Oregon. Regina Barrister is at the top of her craft and is named "The Sorceress" by those she slaughters in court.

Robin couldn't be happier to be second chair in a huge murder trial. Before long, that happiness turns to trepidation due to Regina's strange behavior. With a man's life on the line, Robin struggles with how to approach her boss' issues. To me, it's no-brainer but there's gotta be some sort of tension there.

Sure I read this book in a few hours and I admit it was entertaining enough but I felt like I was reading a book by someone like me. Someone who's unable to craft a masterful tale or just has too little time to devote to the project. This is not the first Margolin novel so I'm quite surprised at how dumbed down The Third Victim seemed.

As I write this review, I'm rethinking the generosity of my 3-stars. There is nothing complicated here.

To be more precise, there's nothing new here.

Every moment leads to another predictable moment, topped off with another helping of that same predictable flow. To make matters worse, the characters were as thin as... well... paper. See?

I'm no lyricist. I don't require that the books I read be complicated either. I swear I'm no book snob but I expect my legal thrillers to be just a tab bit more thrilling.

Either way it goes... I'll leave The Third Victim with 3-stars because it is an easy read. It's great as an in-between book. Something that can be read quickly and is entertaining enough to see through to the end. Although I wasn't thrilled with this novel, reading it didn't make me a long suffering victim nor deter me from reading more by this author.

Copy provided by St. Martin's Press via Netgalley

Oh shit! I almost forgot to mention there's a huge other story line going on that sort of just ends. I don't know what happened to it. My review was going to follow along the same lines. It could be that I kinda just skimmed the last 20 pages but seriously? What happened to the Prater story?

“The Third Victim” by Phillip Margolin is a police procedure and courtroom drama. Serene and peaceful Hammond County, Oregon is shattered by a series of kidnappings and murders
There is a lot of evidence and conflicting forensics. Courtroom testimony further muddles the case. Everyone is suspect, even those who are supposed to be upholding the law. Conflicting clues come out, and courtroom revelations add to the surprise.
The pace was consistent, and the trial scenes were strong. The action was easy to follow, although somewhat predictable. There were a multitude of characters, but some of them who I felt should have been strong personalities were shallow and condescending.
I received a copy of “The Third Victim” from Phillip Margolin, St. Martin’s Press, and Net Galley. This was not a nail-biting thriller, but it was a consistent solid book with enough mystery and twists to keep readers involved. I enjoyed it

Fans of Phillip Margolin’s bestselling thrillers will be excited to pick up The Third Victim, where he introduces characters that will most likely (hopefully) become ongoing in subsequent novels. Robin Lockwood, a young, inexperienced lawyer, has just been hired by Regina Barrister, a well-known Lawyer with the reputation of being tough, and a nickname, The Sorceress. Barrister has agreed to represent Alex Mason, an attorney with questionable ethics, who has been accused of two murders and an attempted murder where the victim escaped. He, of course, claims innocence, but the overwhelming evidence says otherwise. Since Barrister has some new, possibly catastrophic personal issues that she is not willing to disclose, much of the burden of getting Mason off may fall upon Lockwood and another associate at the firm. The dilemma is whether or not to fight to get him off when he is probably guilty.

Margolin is at the top of his game in this novel. The characters are well-developed and believable. The plot has dozens of ups and downs, and readers will be kept on the edge of their seats throughout. It’s a novel that’s difficult to put down, and has enough unexpected scenarios, that even the most seasoned and skeptical thriller aficionados will welcome the building suspense and uncertainty of which characters are actually guilty and what isn’t obvious.

Many things are not as they seem in this novel, and readers will have trouble if they are trying to guess what will ultimately happen in the end. The Third Victim is an excellent novel and is highly recommended for readers who love thrillers.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

This was a good, twisty legal thriller with an abundance of suspects, red herrings and surprising courtroom reveals. Set in rural Hammond County, Oregon, Meredith Fenner manages to escape after being kidnapped and tortured by a masked assailant, but 2 other women did not escape. The prostitutes Patricia Rawls and Tonya Benson had previously been found murdered and all three crimes were very similar. Based on evidence supplied by Meredith, attorney Alex Mason is soon arrested for the 3 attacks and appears to be guilty based on both forensic evidence and the testimony of his wife. However, also in the picture are a sadistic cop, a pimp and a defense attorney who may not be up to the job of defending Mason.

I like courtroom dramas and I've read and enjoyed other books by this author. My favorite parts of this book were the trial scenes. I would have preferred less detail about the problems of the chief defense attorney but overall I liked this book.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

Meredith Fenner is found injured but alive on a dark stretch of road in rural Oregon with a tale of being kidnapped, tortured, and beaten. She had escaped from a nearby cabin. Her injuries are similar to two earlier victims in Portland who both ended up dead… their murders as yet unsolved. Meredith recovers and leads the police to the cabin where she was held captive. It is owned by a successful lawyer, Alex Mason. Mason has recently married his second wife who tells the police he’s a control freak and likes his sex kinky and sometimes violent. She says he enjoys bondage and burning her with a cigarette much the same torture used on the two dead victims as well as on Fenner. The police arrest Mason and he hires the best criminal defense lawyer he knows, Regina Barrister.

Regina is a legendary criminal defense lawyer but she has a secret that could end her career… she’s experiencing early signs of Alzheimer’s. She frequently forgets details and occasionally forgets where she is or where she parked her car. Her young assistant, Robin Lockwood has noticed her boss’s memory loss but is too intimidated to challenge Regina’s authority.

During the discovery phase of Alex Mason’s trial, Robin and her investigator develop a conviction that Mason is innocent but have no real physical evidence to support their theory. Mason claims his wife initiated their kinky sexual encounters and he was an unwilling participant. But it’s his word against hers and the jury finds him guilty. After the trial Robin finds a witness who knew both Meredith Fenner and Mason’s wife years earlier in Florida and will testify the two women know each other. But the trial is over. What can Regina and Robin do at this point to save their client, their professional reputations, and their careers?

The Third Victim is in keeping with Phillip Margolin’s work from his early years as a legal thriller author. Gone But Not Forgotten is one of a plethora of his hits from the 1990’s and early 2000’s that I enjoyed reading. The Third Victim is a return to that genre and is truly Margolin’s strength. The ending, however, is a bit too predictable but the journey to get there is an amazing ride.

Thanks for the advance copy from Netgalley.

Published by St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books on March 6, 2018

A legal thriller should have thrills. The thrills don’t need to involve guns or fists. The best legal thrillers exploit the inherent drama in trials to create tension and suspense. The Third Victim is built on an interesting premise, but it has too little energy to thrill the reader.

The Third Victim starts with the discovery of a woman walking on a road in Oregon. She’s been tortured and, when she’s able to talk, explains that she was held captive and abused by a masked man. She leads the police to the cabin where she was held captive, which happens to be owned by a lawyer named Alex Mason (no relation to Perry). Mason’s DNA is on the duct tape that was used to bind the woman’s hands, so Mason is arrested.

The two key characters are Regina Barrister, Portland’s top criminal defense lawyer, and Robin Lockwood, who Regina recently hired away from a judicial clerkship. Regina seems to be suffering from the early onset of dementia, which is probably supposed to make her sympathetic. Unfortunately, I didn’t know or care enough about Regina to be moved by her dementia. Robin’s mixed martial arts background substitutes for an actual personality. Her fighting prowess nevertheless gives her the opportunity to beat up a client, which is a bit over the top, although it serves to create an interesting conflict of interest.

An abusive cop named Arnold Prater needs Regina’s services when he’s accused of murdering a pimp. The story eventually revolves around Prater and Mason, either or both of whom might be guilty of something, and a couple of women who may or may not be victims.

The most interesting aspect of the novel involves Robin’s role as a newbie lawyer who finds herself playing a key role in a murder trial, given Regina’s apparent dementia. I didn’t quite buy it (the only ethical act would have been to tell Regina she wasn’t capable of defending the case, and then to report her to the bar if she refused to step aside), but I suppose a newbie who just landed a plum job might not be positioned to make the right choice. Still, Regina later fails to recognize an obvious conflict of interest, and if Robin is as smart and capable as she appears to be, the need to intervene to protect a client from that conflict should have been clear to her. Yes, standing up to a prestigious boss is a lot to ask from a new associate, but that’s something that could have been milked for dramatic effect. Like all the other potentially dramatic moments in the novel, it just sort of slides away.

The dialog in The Third Victim is wooden and undifferentiated. Everyone talks like a lawyer, including police detectives who would view it is a sign of dementia if they talked like a lawyer. The characters lack substance and the story lacks pizazz. It moves quickly enough, but it moves like a quick sleepwalker. The plot doesn’t ring true, in part because two characters who seem quite ordinary end up being truly evil, and Phillip Margolin gives the reader no reason to believe that they would engage in the kind of behavior he describes. I liked the concept of a lawyer with dementia, but courtroom drama in The Third Victim is noticeably absent, and what passes for drama outside of the courtroom is unconvincing.

NOT RECOMMENDED

The Third Victim by Phillip Margolin is a standalone book and the 13th book I’ve read by the author.

The action starts in the early pages, and I thought the reader was being exposed to the crime info early on and the remainder of the book would be the “trial” portion of the story – BOY was I wrong! Just when I was convinced I thought I knew who the bad guy was, the author tosses in numerous twist and turns, and offers up several potential options for who actually committed the crime and why.

The story held my attention, has several likable as well as dislikeable characters. The book is filled with crime, deceit, courtroom drama, tension, and friendship. The story is complete, with no cliffhangers or dangling storylines.

I wish to extend my thanks to the author, St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books, and Netgalley for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review. The publication date for the book was March 6th, 2018 – the book is available in multiple formats.

For me, this was a 3.75-star read which I will raise to 4 stars.

3.5 When Robin land the assistant lawyer job with Regina, she is thrilled. Regina has the distinction as the lawyer who has never lost a case, and she has undertaken some Biggie's. When Attorney Alex Mason is arrested, after w woman escapes from his cabin, claiming torture, kidnapping, and sexual assault, he turns to Regina. It will be Robin's first case as second chair. She then begins to notice little things in Regina's behavior that alarms her.

Although I don't consider this to be Margolins best, it is still quite good. He puts together an interesting storyline with a somewhat unique premise concerning a topic that some of us are dealing with in our elderly parents. The storyline was a bit predictable, but there was enough going on to keep me reading, see how it ends. The pace was consistent, though in places I did think the writing could be better. The way he introduced his characters could have been better,more descriptive maybe, less abrupt speech.

I have read this author for many years, off and on and look forward to doing so again.

ARC from Netgalley.

I haven't read any previous novels by this author and I wonder how on earth I missed out on his work! This book had interesting characters, a twisty plot, and an engaging, easy-to-read style of writing. I did guess the possible outcome but was glad to see my theory pan out! I definitely recommend this book and look forward to reading more from this author!

Well there went a good night of sleep! I started this one late in the evening and did not put it down until after 3 am -- definitely a "read in one sitting" type of legal thriller that I hope is the first in a new series by this talented author.

The plot is described in the blurb but essentially it is full of twists, turns and surprises that begs the question -- who is the real victim? No spoilers, but when a tortured and starved woman is found at the edge of a road in Whisper Lake -- one whose horrible treatment bears similarities to two other cases of dead women -- many different groups of law enforcement and justice kick into action. The prime suspect is a prominent attorney and the prosecutor goes for the death penalty.

A large cast of characters and interesting detail about their lives provide a sidebar to the legal maneuvering. I found all of it quite absorbing and, though I guessed where it all might be going, I love to see the process of how the truth is revealed despite the red herrings.

I really would like to see more of Robin Lockwood and the legal team. I'm worried about Regina Barrister. I liked the Oregon setting. I do enjoy a good legal thriller and this fit the bill. Bring it on!
It was a refreshing change for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for this e-book ARC to read and review.

The Third Victim is Phillip Margolin's latest book, this one published by St. Martin's Press Minotaur Books.

I have read no fewer than ten previous works by Phillip Margolin, and he has been one of my favorite authors in the suspense and law-drama genres through the years. In my humble opinion, The Third Victim, is not one of his better offerings, nor is it representative of his talent. Phillip, did you really write this book, or are you employing want-to-be authors as ghost-writers like some other well known authors (yes, you JP!)???

Two women are brutally tortured and murdered, while the third victim gets away and is found by a passing motorist. She leads the police to a mountain cabin owned by wealthy lawyer Alex Mason. The lawyer hired to represent Mason is Regina Barrister, a well-known defense attorney who assigns one of her new associates, Robin Lockwood, as second chair. The case initially looks like a slam-dunk against Mason, complete with DNA evidence and revealing testimony from Mason's wife. Yet several things don't really seem to match up, and it becomes a "he said/she said" between the couple.

Throw in a bad cop who also enjoys torturing women, witnesses who lie, and the lead defense attorney who is starting to show signs of early dementia, and you have multiple messes to figure out. Except, I was never able to connect with the characters or get invested enough in the story to care who did what and why. Towards the end, I turned pages only to see what the end result was so that I could put the book down with a sense of completion.

A so-so read; I debated giving it a less than average rating. Only my respect for Margolin's prior works kept me from doing that. I believe in second, and third, and more chances. I hope your next book is better!

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press Minotaur Books for allowing me to read an e-copy of this book.