From the Publisher
"[Margolin's] knifelike ability to create sophisticated plots keeps his fans in their favorite reading chairs." —Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star
"Anyone who picks up this book will struggle to put it down." —St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“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.” —Booklist (starred review)
"The best one yet!" —Red Carpet Crash
“Margolin is a wizard who creates a story that brings all the issues to a neatly trimmed head. If you have nothing to do for two days, pick up The Darkest Place—you won’t be disappointed." —New York Journal of Books
Library Journal
10/01/2021
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.
JUNE 2022 - AudioFile
Narrator Thérèse Plummer, who has been the voice for the Robin Lockwood series, masterfully draws listeners into the fifth installment. Plummer deftly differentiates characters, men and women, with appropriate emotional intensity. While listeners will appreciate her talented performance, they may find the plot dependent on several incidents that strain credulity. Portland defense attorney Lockwood takes on a case that leads to personal tragedy, resulting in her going back to her hometown, Elk Grove, to recover. Coincidently, Oregon police officer Marjorie Loman, whose husband has been murdered, flees to Elk Grove. The storylines cross when Lockwood defends Loman for kidnapping and abusing the baby for which she was a surrogate. Plummer deserves credit for keeping listeners engaged with the fast-paced but implausible plot. E.Q. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2021-12-15
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.
