Book Review: Wild Justice

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Wild Justice     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Phillip Margolin
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Legal Setting   Medical   Thriller
Series: Amanda Jaffe # 1
HarperCollins, Aug 2000, $26.00, 362 pp.

Portland police detective Bobby Vasquez uncovers an ugly scenario in a remote cabin in the nearby Oregon woods. Apparently, Dr. Vincent Cardoni was harvesting body organs to sell to the rich and famous. Cardoni is arrested but his attorney Frank Jaffe obtains his client’s freedom due to a legal technicality. Not long afterward, someone, probably the mob, murders Cardoni.

Several years later, Cardoni’s widow Dr. Justine Castle is placed on trial for her role in the human slaughterhouses. Justin insists she is innocent although her fingerprints are all over the cabin where the harvesting has occurred. Her lawyer, Frank’s daughter Amanda, wonders if her client has done the crime in light of the suspicious deaths of her first two spouses or as Justin claims, Vincent lives and is setting her up for the fall?

WILD JUSTICE is a wild legal-medical thriller that moves at a pace faster than the speediest cheetah. The story line is exciting although it at times seems stretched. However, readers will not care about the reasonableness of the events happening because the action is so fast and furious that doubts take too long to form. Phillip Margolin knows how to set the pace when it comes to pleasurable sub-genre novels.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner