I debated giving this book 2 stars because it was interesting. In three of the primary professions in this book, law enforcement, law practice, and medicine, we see unethical and unbelievable conduct throughout. Setting aside that we are not concerned with the characters and the psychology is not interesting, the narrative does not have a credible inner logic. Or, more likely, you'll guess who it is within the first hundred pages. The plot revolves around a serial killer and there are only 3 possible suspects: the coked-out doctor, his ex-wife he abused and who has a trail of dead husbands from whom she has collected life insurance proceeds, and the tall, dark and handsome love interest (did I mention he's a doctor?!). It is perhaps the worst gratuitous sex scene in fiction, ever. When the impending relationship is consummated, of course, the protagonist is all a quiver. Her unbelievable character, who has set her love life aside to succeed as a professional, immediately is smitten with an old friend from childhood who is tall, dark and handsome (and a doctor, God love it!). The protagonist is a young hotty who graduated at the top of her law school class, completed a prestigious clerkship, has now gone on to work for Daddy doing criminal defense work in the private sector, and is of course eminently single. An entire page later, in a chase scene in the woods, Margolin writes: 'Gordon had hiked and camped in the army.' This sloppiness disproportionately bothered me and I wonder how it gets by both the author and the editor that the marines and the army are not the same. For example, we learn on page 160 that local mafia hitman Ed Gordon is an ex-marine who had been dishonorably discharged for assaulting an officer. Phillip Margolin lazily wrote Wild Justice, both in character development and from a plot standpoint. How can you combine doctors, lawyers, local mafia, serial killers, abusive spouses, and harvested organs on the black market, into a psychological thriller set in the beautiful pacific northwest, and not succeed? I'll tell you how! Read Wild Justice.

Wild Justice by Phillip Margolin