to the exceptional form of his early novels with this gripping, tightly plotted, and smoothly written legal thriller... A winner from a veteran genre author." --Booklist

The "master of heart-pounding suspense" returns with a brand new series and a USA Today bestseller The Third Victim is New York Times bestseller Phillip Margolin at his very best.

A woman stumbles onto a dark road in rural Oregon--tortured, battered, and bound. She tells a horrific story about being kidnapped, then tortured, until she finally managed to escape. She was the lucky one--two other women, with similar burns and bruises, were found dead.

The surviving victim identifies the house where she was held captive and the owner, Alex Mason--a prominent local attorney--is arrested. Although he loudly insists upon his innocence, his wife's statements about his sexual sadism and the physical evidence found at the scene, his summer home, is damning.

Regina Barrister is a legendary criminal defense attorney, known as "The Sorceress" for her courtroom victories. But she's got a secret, one that threatens her skill, her reputation, and, most of all, her clients. And she's agreed to take on the seemingly impossible task of defending Alex Mason.

Robin Lockwood, a young lawyer and former MMA fighter, has just left a clerkship at the Oregon Supreme Court to work for Regina Barrister. The Alex Mason trial is her first big one, a likely death penalty case, and she's second chair to Regina. Increasingly, she's worried her boss's behavior and the details in the case against their client don't quite add up.