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Wild Justice

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

Seven years ago, Phillip Margolin seized the imagination of thriller readers everywhere with his chilling breakout bestseller, Gone, but Not Forgotten. After five subsequent New York Times bestsellers, Margolin now returns to the haunting terrain of Gone, but Not Forgotten with a mesmerizing tour de force of psychological suspense, an electrifying tale of revenge and retribution that shows a master storyteller at the very peak of his craft.

Thursday: Subject is still combative after four days of applied pain, sleep deprivation and minimal food.

Vice squad detective Bobby Vasquez, for months on the trail of a slippery underworld figure, receives an anonymous tip that directs him to a mountain cabin. He races through the idyllic Oregon woods, expecting to close the book on a long-standing vendetta. What he finds instead opens a Pandora's box of horror that will haunt him to his dying day.

8:10: Subject bound and gaffed and placed in upstairs closet at end of hall. Turned out lights in house, drove off, then parked and doubled back. Watched from woods.

Within hours, Vincent Cordoni — a brilliant surgeon with a history of violence and drug abuse — is arrested for a heinous crime. Facing a seemingly insurmountable wall of evidence, he turns to Portland's top criminal defense attorney, Frank Jaffe-who, along with his ambitious daughter, Amanda, must put on an inspired defense. Amanda's first taste of criminal defense work is as intoxicating as it is chilling, but it raises moral questions she's loath to address. Is she defending an innocent man? Or is she using her considerable skills to set a monster free? Then Cardoni disappears under bizarre circumstances. Four years later, a second set of murders has begun ....

8:55: Subject exits house, naked and barefoot, armed with kitchen knife. Remarkable strength of character. Breaking her will be a challenge.

Has Cardoni resurfaced to ply his deadly trade anew? Is there a copycat killer? Or has the real killer been someone else all along? The police will do everything they can to stop Cardoni — but they have to find him first.

Following a twisting trail of clues, including a harrowing diary that clinically records the killer's horrible deeds, Amanda Jaffe and Bobby Vasquez join the hunt-and themselves become targets of the twenty-first century's first genuinely monstrous psychopath.

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  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from July 31, 2000
      Devious doctors test the ethics of ambitious attorneys in Margolin's (The Undertaker's Widow) latest speed-read, and give a plot already adrenalized by drug deals, serial murders and organized crime an added jolt of grisly medical mayhem. Novice criminal lawyer Amanda Jaffe helps her legal eagle father Frank defend Portland surgeon Vincent Cardoni against charges that the doctor conspired to sell illicitly harvested organs to support his coke habit and maintained a private torture chamber for his victims in a mountain cabin outside the city limits. Cardoni is freed on a technicalityDand presumed murdered by the mob shortly afterward when his disappearance coincides with the discovery of his severed hand. Four years later, Amanda is asked to lead the defense of doctor Justine Castle, Vincent's ex-wife, when her fingerprints turn up all over another cabin slaughterhouse. Amanda worries that Justine, whose first two husbands also died suspiciously, set up Vincent, but Justine has another theory: psychopathic Vincent is still alive and doing his best to frame her. En route to a breathtaking finale in which Amanda plays bait to the true killer at yet another bloodstained hideout, Margolin buffets the reader with an endless stream of pulpy plot twists: a shamed cop's reformation, rampaging Russian hit men, creative surgery and astonishingly acrobatic feats of pursuit and escape by ordinary people. Only the hysterical pace of the adventures will prevent readers from dwelling too long on their implausibility; meanwhile, pages will turn fast enough to make the perfect breeze for chilling beachside escapists. 250,000 first printing; $250,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club, Mystery Guild and BOMC selections; 12-city author tour.

    • Booklist

      July 1, 2000
      Margolin's seventh novel is at least as good as his remarkable early books, including "The Last Innocent Man" (1995) or "Heartstone" (1995); it may even be better. His previous novel, "The Undertaker's Widow" (1998), felt like he was trying to imitate John Grisham, but Margolin is a far superior writer, and here he returns to the complex, intelligent storytelling his fans have come to expect. The plot is straightforward enough: a serial killer is torturing and murdering people seemingly at random, and investigators scramble to stop the psychopath. But, as readers familiar with his novels know, Margolin likes to play variations on a theme, and here he offers not one but two prime suspects--Dr. Vincent Cardoni, a prominent surgeon, and Dr. Justine Castle, Cardoni's estranged wife. Each accuses the other of a frame-up, and Amanda Jaffe, a rather inexperienced young attorney, has to figure out which of her clients may be a murderer. A very clever thriller indeed, and a delight for Margolin's many fans. ((Reviewed July 2000))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)

    • Library Journal

      August 9, 2000
      Quelle horreur! The pace of Margolin's (Gone, but Not Forgotten) seventh thriller is breathtakingly fast but not so fast that the engrossed (or grossed-out) reader would fail to experience the awfulness of heads in freezers, hearts in coolers, and victims in the double digits. Mayhem rules when a lunatic surgeon (but which one of three in the story?) preys on the peaceful folk of Portland, OR. A young lawyer finally gets enough of the puzzle pieces in place to guess the grim truth. The book is a selection of the Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club, Mystery Guild, and BOMC, so there will be lots of publicity and long wait lists. It's a stunner, a chiller, and a tour de force from an author at the top of his form. For all popular collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/00.]--Barbara Conaty, Library of Congress

      Copyright 2000 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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