Rating: 
Summary: Good courtroom scenes can't carry rest of this novel
Review: Written by a former criminal defense attorney, the book is a crime thriller that is meant to be a guilty pleasure on the order of John Grisham.
I'm no fan of Grisham, and I found Margolin's undertaking to be rife with the same types of problems I have with Grisham.
The protagonist in the book is Judge Richard Quinn, who finds himself drawn into a web of intrigue after he is assigned to hear a homicide case against Senator Ellen Crease, who is running a primary political campaign against Benjamin Gage (both republicans).
Quinn is seduced by a beautiful woman, who is then apparently murdered. He hides his knowledge of the murder for a variety of reasons, and then is blackmailed to rule against Senator Crease.
What follows is a series of "gotchas," with the last two thirds of the book being crammed full with at least a dozen major plot twists that implicate different major players in both murders.
The plot twists are one of the major problems in the book. They are by turns boring and absurd. At first, suspicion could fall on any of a half dozen people. By the end, pretty much all of the suspects turn out to be guilty in some capacity, and I just wanted the book to end. For good measure, Quinn's adoptive father has a heart attack for absolutely no reason, and recovers with no perceptible impact on the plot.
Another problem is the character development. There seems to be a trend in pulp fiction to blunt accusations of cardboard-two dimensionalism by giving an obligatory problem to each character. So, the Judge has marital problems, his wife is a workaholic, and the senator is too cold for her own good. Who cares? A real character has real depth, and that means more than being something good and something bad. A real character has minor concerns and major concerns. A real character is sloppy. Why must the villains have dirty houses and the heroes have neat houses?
This problem is exacerbated by the plodding dialogue, which is often presented as an exchange between two people with no framing words (such as "he said"). I like this type of exchange sometimes, but in this book, each conversation bore down relentlessly on covering the information that the author thinks we need to hear. Almost every bit of dialogue is crafted with a purpose, and the purpose is almost always to get a piece of information about a crime out to the reader. There is very little attempt to color the dialogue of any of the characters with a recognizable speech pattern, with the exception of a shy character who speaks haltingly. The only time anyone says "uh" is when they're lying. Mostly, the people speak in grammatically perfect sentences that sound like a rehearsed courtroom exchange.
Next problem: chauvinism on the part of the author. The women in the book, invariably sexy, are described in lush detail. This would be okay if we saw everything from the point of view of Richard Quinn (oh, how that would have improved this book!), but there is a shifting point of view that never seems to linger on the physicality of the men in the same way as the women.
The point of view thing is reminding me of another annoying incident. The evidence first points to Ellen Crease being a victim in the murder of her husband. But then a forensic specialist in the lab notices something about the blood spatter patterns that doesn't jibe with Ellen's story. He tells the lead detective, but the audience is kept out of hearing what the inconsistency is. This is done awkwardly about three times with sentences like "Tom told Harry what Dick had noticed about the blood spatters," and so I assumed that the revelation would be huge and shocking. But it wasn't at all. It was exactly what you would expect, just something about Crease's position in the room being different. And the evidence turns out to be inconclusive, because another expert says that, no, the spatter evidence could support Crease after all. There are dozens of other revelations that are equally important to the story that are not kept from the reader. Why Margolin chose this one I have no idea.
So what's done right in this book? Not much. The one thing that I enjoyed was the insider's view on the courtroom experience, inasmuch as Margolin convincingly explains three briefs that sit before Judge Quinn that have an impact on the trial. The description and explanation of the briefs and other legal matters is done succinctly, clearly, and with great purpose.
If Margolin wants to write legal thrillers, he should spend 90% of his time in the courtroom, and leave the rest of the events in the background. That's the only way he's ever going to be thrilling.
Rating: 
Summary: It was great but . . .
Review: . . . the court scenes were too long. We listened to the Audio version of The Undertaker's Widdow, and we didn't miss a beat.
Rating: 
Summary: Brain Candy
Review: A fast paced legal thriller with a likeable main character. The plot is fairly intricate and it held my interest throughout. This is not deep, intellectually stimulating fare, but a good choice to pass the time on a rainy day.
Rating: 
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: i won't remember this book a week from now.
Review: Characters aren't consistent. The plot left some holes. It really didn't "do it" for me. I wouldn't recommend this book for friends... and if the ending was consistent with the opening chapter... Well, it would have been a completely different ending, wouldn't it? Maybe that was the point.
Rating:
Summary: Who killed Lamar Hoyt
Review: Ellen Crease, Oregon State Senator, former crack shot and policewoman, is found holding her dead husband's body in her arms while an intruder lies dead on the floor nearby. Her husband, Lamar Hoyt had a history of running around on his wives and then trading them in on a new model as the old one became tiresome. His son hated him for not giving him a bigger piece of the Undertaking business that had created the family fortune. A new and relatively inexperienced, but brilliant, Judge is assigned the case after having been newly transferred to the homicide rotation. Judge Quinn is idealistic and in love with the law ... maybe more so than his wife who wants power and money more that Judge Quinn appears to. A subplot takes place when Judge Quinn travels to an island for a convention only find at the last minute that his wife cannot accompany him. She has been tricked into making another trip so that Judge Quinn can be seduced on his trip by a call girl who is eventually killed. The judge proves to be naive and gullable. The book begins with the fact that Ellen Crease did shoot her husband. It has more than enough characters to be somewhat confusing, but the suspense is sustained by the fact that we don't know WHY Lamar Hoyt died until we reach the end. And then we find out about the mystery bad guy. Read the book. This doesn't make five starts, but it's a good read.
Rating:
Summary: Who killed Lamar Hoyt
Review: Ellen Crease, Oregon State Senator, former crack shot and policewoman, is found holding her dead husband's body in her arms while an intruder lies dead on the floor nearby. Her husband, Lamar Hoyt had a history of running around on his wives and then trading them in on a new model as the old one became tiresome. His son hated him for not giving him a bigger piece of the Undertaking business that had created the family fortune. A new and relatively inexperienced, but brilliant, Judge is assigned the case after having been newly transferred to the homicide rotation. Judge Quinn is idealistic and in love with the law ... maybe more so than his wife who wants power and money more that Judge Quinn appears to. A subplot takes place when Judge Quinn travels to an island for a convention only find at the last minute that his wife cannot accompany him. She has been tricked into making another trip so that Judge Quinn can be seduced on his trip by a call girl who is eventually killed. The judge proves to be naive and gullable. The book begins with the fact that Ellen Crease did shoot her husband. It has more than enough characters to be somewhat confusing, but the suspense is sustained by the fact that we don't know WHY Lamar Hoyt died until we reach the end. And then we find out about the mystery bad guy. Read the book. This doesn't make five starts, but it's a good read.
Rating:
Summary: forget this one
Review: Full of trite, unrealized characters; enough unexplained plot twists and turns you'll need a road map; and a totally unsatisfying, unexpected and (worse yet) inexplicable ending left me wishing I hadn't bothered. The plot "set-ups" are , for the most part, so obvious you want to slap Judge Quinn upside the head and yell 'WAKE UP YOU DOLT!'. also, I found it unbelievably annoying that Margolin simply dismisses what should have been serious events in the book with simple declarative sentences. Puhleeze. My suggestion to the barrister...go back to practicing law.
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: 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!
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