A Reasonable Doubt

February 3, 2020
In the teasing prologue of bestseller Margolin’s convoluted third novel featuring attorney Robin Lockwood (after 2019’s The Perfect Alibi), Lockwood attends the debut of her magician client Robert Chesterfield’s “greatest illusion,” the Chamber of Death, which involves a locked coffin, at a Portland, Ore., theater. Three years earlier, Lockwood attended a dress rehearsal of the act, which “ended in a truly bizarre manner,” at Chesterfield’s seaside manor. This time, things also don’t go as planned, as screams emerging from the coffin are followed by the discovery of a male corpse, leaving Robin to wonder how murder was committed before 3,000 witnesses. Flash back to 2017, when Chesterfield seeks to hire her to patent the Chamber of Death, which she eventually agrees to do, despite having no experience with intellectual property. Another flashback, to 1997, shows that Lockwood was once suspected of a fatal poisoning. By the time the action returns to the present, the impact of the opening has been greatly diluted. Readers interested in whodunits set in the world of magic would be better served by Clayton Rawson’s classic Merlini novels. 100,000-copy announced first printing. Agent: Jennifer Weltz, Jean V. Naggar Literary.

February 1, 2020
A magician's greatest illusion becomes even more dramatic when he's killed onstage in front of 3,000 witnesses. Lord Robert Chesterfield (don't look too closely at that presumably self-conferred title) has finally perfected his ultimate magic trick: the Chamber of Death, which involves his escape from a bolted sarcophagus filled with scorpions, snakes, and him. Since Chesterfield's only public rehearsal for the illusion ended with his vanishing from both the sarcophagus and the face of the Earth for three years, expectations are running high, and the tickets for his performance at the Babylon Casino all seem to have been reserved for everyone the performer has ever crossed. His estranged second wife, Claire Madison, is there, along with her lover, rival magician David Turner, whose professional life took a nose dive when Chesterfield told the world the secret behind Turner's own trademark illusion. Joe Samuels, one of Chesterfield's many creditors, is on hand, and although Augustine Montenegro, a harder-edged creditor, couldn't make it, he's sent two of his enforcers. Iris Hitchens, who's never stopped believing that Chesterfield killed her mother, Lily Dowd, the grocery heiress who was his first wife, is watching in rapt attention. So are detectives Tamara Robinson and Lou Fletcher, who've come to arrest the magician for theft. There's hardly room in the crowd for young attorney Robin Lockwood (The Perfect Alibi, 2019, etc.), whose firm defended Chesterfield years ago against the charge of poisoning Sophie Randall, the secretary to Westmont Country Club manager Samuel Moser, who'd accused Chesterfield of cheating at cards and coming on to Sophie and others--and yes, Moser's in the audience too. It's clear from the opening pages that the Chamber of Death will be Chesterfield's last performance; the pages that follow are devoted to filling in the layers upon layers of dubious backstory and multiplying the suspects even further before the guilty party is plucked from thin air. Lots of tricks up Margolin's sleeve. Just don't expect the denouement to bring down the house.

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February 15, 2020
The third Robin Lockwood novel (following The Perfect Alibi, 2019) from the veteran New York Times best-selling author of more than 20 legal thrillers. This time, Lockwood is drawn into the world of a professional magician, Lord Chesterfield, who claims to be British royalty, accused of three suspicious deaths in the past, including that of his wealthy wife. He was defended and acquitted each time by Lockwood's mentor, Regina Barrister. Now Chesterfield asks Lockwood to handle the copyright for his greatest illusion, the Chamber of Death. He pulls a for-real vanishing act after its preview to escape his debts, then shows up again three years later and announces he is resurrecting the Chamber. The deputy DA who prosecuted his cases?along with Chesterfield's creditors, rival magicians, several women he misused, and his late wife's daughter?are all in attendance at the opening performance. When the sarcophagus is opened, Chesterfield is dead inside. A smooth, tight narrative with a snappy, old-time whodunit finish. Margolin pulls off his own sleight of hand when the murderer is revealed.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

October 1, 2019

Criminal defense attorney Robin Lockwood has just received the strangest request of her career: a magician seeks patent protection for an illusion he's about to perform. When she investigates, Robin discovers that he is a former client her firm helped clear of murder and attempted murder charges. What's most bizarre: when the magician performs his new illusion, he is what disappears.

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