Phillip Margolin brings us another exciting thriller featuring Portland defense attorney Robin Lockwood, who has a reputation in the legal community for being a straight shooter. Her career has had its bumps, but she has steadily grown a successful practice despite the trauma of her fiancé’s death three years ago. Her recovery is complicated by the memory of that day in the courtroom when Jeff saved her life only to lose his. But now maybe it’s time to move on. She’ll never get over Jeff, but she’s taken an interest in Tom McKee, the deputy DA. Robin and Tom certainly have things in common, even though they are on different sides of the table in the courtroom.

"Aside from the courtroom thrills, the action on the streets of Portland will keep any reader entertained. BETRAYAL takes us inside the legal system without getting complicated."

A decade earlier, Robin had been working passionately on a different career: becoming an MMA fighter. She was good, but not good enough. Mandy Kerrigan, a big name in the game, knocked her out in their only bout and ended those aspirations. Still, when Kerrigan has a match in Portland, Robin invites Tom to accompany her to the Moda Center to watch the fight. The 10 intervening years have taken a toll on Kerrigan, but she puts on a good show. However, she fails the post-fight drug test, which sets in motion all sorts of repercussions, and takes her revenge on Ryan Finch, the guy who sold her the drugs. The fact that she beat him up wouldn’t matter so much except that Ryan and his family are murdered soon after that. Worse, a neighbor saw Kerrigan at the Finch door right around the time of the homicides.

When the police arrest Kerrigan, she calls Robin. Robin has to put her budding love life on hold in order to represent Kerrigan when it’s discovered that Tom will serve as the prosecutor. Perhaps the romance wasn’t meant to be after all. She throws herself hard into the case, especially since it could mean death for her client. What she needs to do is create reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury, which she ought to have no problem doing.

The State’s evidence is not very strong, and there’s no shortage of other suspects. Ryan’s mom, Margaret, was an attorney who represented the local mob. His dad was a chemist who concocted designer drugs, like the one Kerrigan used, and he had gambling debts. Ryan’s sister, Annie, had made enemies at school when she turned mean and vicious, causing the suicide of a classmate. Then there’s the mob itself. They’d been running an insurance scam, which was mostly harmless, except financially. But then something went awry, and a woman named Susan Chen was killed. Her husband is devastated and extremely angry. Would he take it out on the attorney for the mob? That’s not so far-fetched.

So, with all of that to work with, Robin surely can pull a rabbit out of a hat, right? However, she knows that Tom is an excellent prosecutor. He won’t play dirty, but he will use everything at his disposal, and she worries that he seems too confident for a case that appears thin. Plus, trying to switch suspicion from her client to the mob can be tricky, not to mention very dangerous. Accusing these guys of criminal activity sort of makes them want to strike back. So Robin has to be careful whenever she steps outside. She will be relieved once the trial is over, and she can get back to something akin to normal, breathe a little easier, and maybe walk around without constantly looking over her shoulder.

Aside from the courtroom thrills, the action on the streets of Portland will keep any reader entertained. BETRAYAL takes us inside the legal system without getting complicated. Phillip Margolin knows exactly how much detail to provide in order to understand the law and keep it from turning dull. Nothing is dull about this book. It is quite the twister!