Description
From Publishers Weekly Margolin's second novel, originally published in 1981, finds defense attorney David Nash having qualms about his profession. He's helped free a famous novelist, Thomas Gault, whom he later suspects may actually have beaten his wife to death. And he's discovered that his new client, whom he'd believed innocent of killing a policewoman, lied to him about his alibi. Margolin's smooth prose and Christopher Lane's versatile narration easily shake loose whatever dust may have settled on the book. Lane's voice suggests education and class; it's a natural fit for a successful attorney like Nash. But with only a slight supercilious edge, it's just as appropriate for the sardonic novelist Gault. Lane toughens up for a private eye in Nash's employ and even finds the precise flat, slurred vocal for a stoned teenage girl who's a witness for the prosecution. A Harper hardcover. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. Phillip Margolin is the author of fifteen New York Times bestsellers. Each novel displays a unique, compelling insider’s view of criminal behavior which comes from his long background as a criminal defense attorney who has handled thirty murder cases. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
Features & Highlights
- Defense attorney David Nash has made a career out of setting monsters free—and no one does it better. Now a case has come to “the Ice Man” that could help cleanse Nash of the guilt and doubts that torment him: that rarest of all defendants, an innocent man.
- A family man, a rising star in the legal profession, this new client has been accused of a heinous crime—the brutal murder of an undercover vice cop. But the case that is supposed to be Nash’s redemption could prove to be his downfall, dragging him into a dark and sinister world where lies and the truth are interchangeable; where the manipulator becomes the manipulated, and every answer spawns more complex and terrifying questions. And as the shadows close in around him, the final question that remains for David Nash concerns his own fate: life…or death?
- “Beautifully constructed…tightly written, a pleasant mixture of brutality and humanity, with a humdinger of a solution.” —
- Contra Costa Times
- “Margolin is the master.” —
- Pittsburgh Tribune Review





