Review by Booklist Review
In the fifth Robin Lockwood novel, the Portland, Oregon, defense lawyer is devastated by a personal tragedy. Returning to her small hometown of Elk Grove, she intends to do nothing but rest and try to recover. Instead, she winds up taking on the case of Marjorie Loman, a surrogate mother who's been accused of kidnapping the child she gave birth to from its rightful parents. It's not a simple case: the woman is clearly guilty, but it's the circumstances surrounding the kidnapping that confuse the issue, and Robin has no idea what she will uncover. Margolin's strength has always been story construction: when his stories are weak, so are his novels. But when they are strong, readers are in for a great ride. This novel is almost diabolical in its complexity, and we are constantly being hit with one surprising, what-the-hell-is-going-on-here moment after another. Pairing up two of Margolin's most interesting characters, series lead Lockwood and the cool, calculating Marjorie Loman, this is not only the best in this series, but one of Margolin's best novels, period.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Bestseller Margolin's mundane fifth Robin Lockwood novel (after 2021's A Matter of Life and Death) takes Robin, a well-respected Portland, Ore., defense attorney, home to Elk Grove, "a very conservative farming community in the Midwest," after a personal tragedy. Cloistered with her grief, Robin begins to revive when a local lawyer asks for her help with an unusual case. Marjorie Loman is accused of kidnapping the baby for whom she was a surrogate and assaulting the adoptive parents. Working on her defense, Robin discovers that Marjorie has an arrest warrant back in Oregon in connection with the torture and murder of her husband, Joel, with whom she was involved in a contentious divorce and who had wiped out their joint bank accounts. Joel also had been embezzling millions from his company and was being threatened by gangsters. Slow-moving courtroom scenes in Elk Grove and in Oregon simply regurgitate the uninspired plot points. The fully rounded Robin appeals, but other characters come across as caricatures. Margolin has done better. Agent: Jennifer Weltz, Jean V. Naggar Literary. (Mar.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Attorney Robin Lockwood is left completely undone by a difficult case she's taken on as a favor to a judge, so she leaves Portland, OR, for her small hometown of Elk Grove to recover. But there's no rest for the weary; she's soon drawn into a case involving a surrogate, now living under a false identity, who is accused of spiriting away the baby she carried for a couple and of assaulting them. From New York Times best-selling Margolin.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
There's nothing like a pair of impossible legal cases to help a defense lawyer get over the death of the fiance who was gunned down in front of her. As soon as Profit, Oregon, investment adviser Joel Loman is found shot to death behind a Portland restaurant, a pair of homicide detectives call on his new widow, Marjorie Loman of the Profit Police Department, who can hardly conceal her delight that she no longer has to divorce the husband who was cheating on her with Kelly Starrett, his partner in Emerald Wealth Management. The detectives are shortly followed by a pair of thugs who tell Marjorie that Joel owed their boss $250,000 they expect her to pay. Faced with intolerable pressures from the law and the lawless, she flees to Elk Grove, Iowa, where, as Ruth Larson, she signs a $50,000 contract to serve as the surrogate who'll carry a baby for childless Caleb and Emily Lindstrom. When the baby is born, Marjorie, unexpectedly bonding with him, is desperate to renege on the agreement. She rushes over to the Lindstroms', pistol-whips Emily, and carries off the baby only to be caught soon after. Her defense on kidnapping and child abuse charges would be hopeless if Portland attorney Robin Lockwood, shocked and grief-stricken after witnessing the murder of Jeff Hodges, her investigator and husband-to-be, hadn't also retreated to her hometown of Elk Ridge, where she reluctantly agrees to join local attorney Stan McDermott in defending Marjorie and then, when Marjorie's extradited back to Portland, follows her and takes on her solo defense against the charge of murdering her husband. Whew! Margolin manages his overstuffed, profoundly unlikely plot with all the efficiency of an extra-sharp defense brief. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
