The Third Victim by Phillip Margolin

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