The Third Victim

"Margolin continues his return to the exceptional form of his early novels with this gripping, tightly plotted, and smoothly written legal thriller... A winner from a veteran genre author." ΓÇöBooklist
The ΓÇ£master of heart-pounding suspenseΓÇ¥ returns with a brand new series and a USA Today bestseller The Third Victim is New York Times bestseller Phillip Margolin at his very best.
A woman stumbles onto a dark road in rural OregonΓÇötortured, battered, and bound. She tells a horrific story about being kidnapped, then tortured, until she finally managed to escape. She was the lucky oneΓÇötwo other women, with similar burns and bruises, were found dead.
The surviving victim identifies the house where she was held captive and the owner, Alex MasonΓÇöa prominent local attorneyΓÇöis arrested. Although he loudly insists upon his innocence, his wifeΓÇÖs statements about his sexual sadism and the physical evidence found at the scene, his summer home, is damning.

Regina Barrister is a legendary criminal defense attorney, known as ΓÇ£The SorceressΓÇ¥ for her courtroom victories. But sheΓÇÖs got a secret, one that threatens her skill, her reputation, and, most of all, her clients. And sheΓÇÖs agreed to take on the seemingly impossible task of defending Alex Mason.
Robin Lockwood, a young lawyer and former MMA fighter, has just left a clerkship at the Oregon Supreme Court to work for Regina Barrister. The Alex Mason trial is her first big one, a likely death penalty case, and sheΓÇÖs second chair to Regina. Increasingly, sheΓÇÖs worried her bossΓÇÖs behavior and the details in the case against their client donΓÇÖt quite add up.