The Undertaker's Widow

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Summary: An Honest Judge is Blackmailed and Framed
Review: An intruder breaks in to the house of wealthy Portland, Oregon businessman Lamar Hoyt and shoots him to death, but before he can bring his gun to bear on his wife, Ellen Crease, ex-policewoman, current state senator and candidate for the United States Senate, she grabs her own pistol and kills the assailant.

Later homicide detective Lou Anthony finds just under ten thousand dollars in the killer's closet. Was the killer paid? If so by who? Was he hired to assassinate a candidate for the US Senate? But then the evidence points to the candidate herself and she is arrested.

Judge Richard Quinn is an honest man and this is his first death penalty case. He meets a girl while on a speaking engagement in the Caribbean, goes snorkeling with her. She is abducted, apparently murdered. Quinn leaves the island without telling the authorities, because he thinks the crime was drug related and that the island's politicians are corrupt.

Back home someone blackmails him to go hard on Crease. He rebels, does the opposite and lets her off on a technicality. The blackmailer is furious, commits murder, frames Quinn and now Quinn is in a race for his life to prove his innocence and who does he turn to for help? You guessed it, the candidate who was almost a convict, Ellen Crease. However, maybe she isn't the best possible choice for an ally.

As usual Mr. Margolin has written a book that is very hard to put down. His characters are well drawn, believable and fun to spend time with, but I have to say I was a little disappointed with the ending. A little too much help for our hero, I thought. But other than that, I enjoyed the book very much.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but Forgotten
Review: I added Margolin to my list of "must-read" authors after reading "Gone, But Not Forgotten" and have enjoyed reading his entire collection. Margolin's maturity as a fiction writer is evident when you go back to "Heartstone" and read his works consecutively.

I do think, however, that Margolin's recent efforts have been slightly less enjoyable than the previous. "Gone But Not Forgotten" was a 10, "After Dark" was excellent too, I gave it a strong 9. "The Burning Man", while good, was not up to the previous two novels standards and I rated it an 8. Now comes "The Undertaker's Widow".

Do not misunderstand me, it is an enjoyable read with several plot twists - actually, too many in my opinion. It is as if Margolin was trying his best to create scenarios where anybody could have "done it". It is like one of those books where you create your own ending - one could re-write the ending of this book several different ways with different characters being the "culprit" and not compromise the integrity of the story line.

Mr. Margolin, it WAS a good read, but we expect more!

Rating:
Summary: Ho Hum Court TV Drama
Review: I read "The Undertaker's Widow" in 2 days and figured out the mystery, i.e. who was responsible for the murders of Hoyt and the intruder, in the first 100 pages. Please!!! This is a ho hum the way "The Firm" was (and it didn't help to have Tom Cruise star in the motion picture same name, still booorrrrriiiiiinnnnnnngggggg!!! Too much time spent in court. I normally put any book down before I buy it or read it that features some attorney and his client or his own legal problems. (I'm from Portland and that didn't even keep me awake from this snoozer.) Who are these people who just couldn't put it down??????

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Summary: TILL DEATH DO THEY PART
Review: In reading several of Margolin's novels, I find one consistency: his characters/heroes really do dumb/stupid things, and then expect the world to either forgive them or help them out. In "The Undertaker's Widow," Judge Richard Quinn is said hero. He has what he thinks is the perfect marriage with a career-driven wife, Laura, who doesn't find his sexual demands as worthwhile as he does. This obviously leads to Quinn's involvement with a mysterious young woman on a trip to an island called St. Jerome's. If Quinn is as moral as the book makes him out to be, his rendezvous with Amanda only shows the shallow side of this hero.
Other than that, he does some more stupid things and winds up in the middle or a really nasty murder case.
The titular widow of this book is one Ellen Crease, who is running for the senate, and kills a man who comes into her mansion to kill her wealthy husband. He does kill him, and from there on, we have a chaotic investigation, with several possible suspects, and Judge Quinn smack dab in the middle of it.
Laura's turnaround near the end of the book, while not totallyl credible, at least is pleasant for our hero. The identity of the murderer in this one is, I admit, a surprise, but it's hasty resolution and it's "cute" little epilogue involving the lady's housekeeper is rather trite.
Not a great read, and certainly not one of Margolin's best, but it's not a waste of time.

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Summary: A legal thriller with lots of ethical choices involved!
Review: Margolin definitely has another bestseller here with all the twists in the plot. The situation is a judge faced with some of the most difficult choices in his life at one of the times in his life when his marriage is also in danger of failing. Some of the plot elements are evident to the reader (like the fact that someone is being set up as a "patsy") but the story itself grips the reader so hard that it's hard to put it down until you've read the conclusion. The characters are portrayed realistically--the reader feels empathy for the judge as well as Senator Crease, the undertaker's widow. Judge Quinn has to decide whether to live by Lincoln's credo which he has hanging on the walls of his chamber or to try to save his reputation and his position using any means necessary. Margolin is Grisham without the political commentary and with a lot of pathos.

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Summary: Margolin not cashing in or selling out...but what?
Review: Yes, I too have read all of Phillip Margolin's books, starting with his best, Gone But Not Forgotten, and then going backwards to his first effort. Maturity is a great attribute in a writer, and Mr. Margolin has certainly matured, but why has he written this book? As an avid reader of Margolin firmly over Grisham and forsaking all others, I, like one of his characters, am searching for the answer to the real mystery: why write this book? This novel is confusing, and I don't mean complicated. Characters are absentmindedly tossed to and fro like deck chairs on the Titanic. The plot is interesting enough, but it borrows a major part of the Firm that any fiction reader will see coming far before the character sees it. (If poor Quinn had read The Firm, he would have cancelled the trip to St. Jerome!) I feel as pained as Judge Quinn putting old Gideon in jail for two years. I love Phillip Margolin's books, and I'll buy the next one. But I have to be honest and say that the only joy I got out of this book was in saying that Phillip Margolin is the ONLY author I've read the entire works of, with the exception of William Shakespeare. (And they made me do that in the English department to get my college diploma in English). The usage of ramshackle twice in 50 pages makes it looked like the author was rushed by his editor. I think that's the real mystery in The Undertaker's Widow: a book had to be written. Case solved. Back to work!