My Reading Blog

Goodreads Summary:   "New York Times" bestselling author Phillip Margolin returns to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C., with an exciting thriller about a ghost ship and the President's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court. Sarah Woodruff, on death row in Oregon for murdering her lover, John Finley, has appealed her case to the Supreme Court just when a prominent justice resigns, leaving a vacancy. Then, for no apparent reason, another justice is mysteriously attacked. Dana Cutler--one of the heroes from Margolin's bestselling "Executive Privilege"--is quietly called in to investigate. She looks for links between the Woodruff appeal and the ominous incidents in the justices' chambers, which eventually lead her to a shoot-out that took place years ago on a small freighter docked upriver in Shelby, Oregon, containing a dead crew and illegal drugs. The only survivor on board? "John Finley." With the help of Bra...

Book Cover:  "Success is fleeting, nobody knows this better than lawyer Amanda Jaffe.  She had been the undisputed rising star of Portland's legal community, but in a cruel twist of irony, the same case that put her on the map - the Cardoni trial, which pitted Amanda against a brilliant sociopath (Wild Justice) - had left her traumatized, doubting her instincts, and shunning the limelight. This reticence ends when Amanda agrees to handle the case no on else will touch.  Jon Dupre, who runs an upscale call-girl service, is accused of murdering a U.S. senator.  Dupre claims to possess proof of the existence of a secret society of powerful men who have banded together for a commonly held political agenda.  The rite of passage that binds them together - the initiation into this powerful brotherhood - is murder. To Amanda these seem the desperate claims of a man who will lie to save his own skin - until she is pressured to walk away from the case.  Determine...

Book Cover:  Peter Hale is a young attorney with a lot to prove.  Crossing his father, one of Portland's most powerful lawyers, was a costly mistake.  Now, cut loose from his job and from his inheritance, Peter's landed in the public defender's office of a small Oregon town - and in the middle of a high-profile case that could make or break his career.  His mentally retarded client, accused of the savage murder of a college coed, faces the death penalty.  And Peter faces a choice - between the pursuit of headlines and the pursuit of truth, between the compulsion to save himself and the courage to save his client - in a devastating trial by fire. I went from hating Peter Hale because he was a spoiled, self-centered guy, but he changed and I ended up actually liking him and hoping that he would achieve his goal of winning the case in the end.  The author had a way of weaving people in and out of his life - some to make him fail and others to help him succee...