Phillip Margolin, best selling author of The Undertaker's Widow, introduces the world to the first genuinely monstrous psychopath of the new century. Also available abridged.

When private detective Dana Cutler is hired by an attorney with powerful political connections, the assignment seems simple enough: follow a pretty college student named Charlotte Walsh and report on where she goes and whom she sees. But then the unexpected happens.

A woman stumbles onto a dark road in rural Oregon - tortured, battered, and bound. She tells a horrific story about being kidnapped, then tortured, until she finally managed to escape. She was the lucky one - two other women, with similar burns and bruises, were found dead. The surviving victim identifies the house where she was held captive, and the owner, Alex Mason - a prominent local attorney - is arrested.

The first woman ever hired by legendary defense lawyer Matthew Reynolds, Tracy Cavanaugh cuts her teeth on a horrifying crime: the car-bomb murder of Oregon Supreme Court Justice Robert Griffen. Reynolds's client--and the chief suspect--is none other than the icy but celebrated prosecutor Abigail Griffen, the Justice's estranged wife. Tracy's research plunges her into a web of betrayal and revenge, of secret deals and hidden passions.

Darkness has fallen on the city of Portland, Oregon. One by one, the wives of affluent and respected men are vanishing from their homes. The only clues to their disappearance are a single black rose and a note that reads, “Gone, But Not Forgotten.” It is the rebirth of a horror that has already devastated a community at the opposite end of the country — and, as it did then, terror and death will follow.Defense attorney Betsy Tannenbaum is trapped in a nightmare as the shadows of a killer darken her world.

Peter Hale is a young attorney with a lot to prove. Crossing his father, one of Portland's most powerful lawyers, was a costly mistake. Now, cut loose from his job and his inheritance, Peter's has landed in the public defender's office of a small Oregon town - and in the middle of a high-profile case that could make or break his career. His mentally handicapped client, accused of the savage murder of a college coed, faces the death penalty.

It's a beautiful summer night in Portland, Oregon. Ami Vergano, a young attorney and single mother, arrives at her son Ryan's little league game with their tenant and new friend, Dan Morelli. When the assistant coach calls in sick, Morelli seems happy to help out. But then one player roughly blocks another and a fight erupts. Before the game ends, Ami witnesses violence that shocks and horrifies her and makes her question everything she thought she knew about Morelli.

Author Miles Van Meter is on a book tour to promote his sensational best seller Sleeping Beauty, a true-crime account of a deeply personal subject: the attack by a serial killer that left his twin sister, Casey, in a coma. Tonight the audience waits to hear Miles discuss recent developments in his sister's case, unaware that pieces of this complex puzzle of violence, unknown even to the author, are about to be revealed.

Matthew Penny, a young lawyer, arrives on the frontier with nothing but shattered dreams. Unable to face the memories that await back home, he joins the handful of lawyers practicing in Portland, Oregon - which in 1860 is just a riverfront town in a state less than a year old. Worthy Brown, a slave from Georgia, journeys west with his master, Caleb Barbour, who promises to reward Worthy and his daughter, Roxanne, with their freedom if they help him establish a homestead in Oregon. When Barbour reneges on his pledge, Worthy's hope for a fresh start with his child is destroyed.

At the end of a long day battling street traffic, bike messenger Jace Damon has one last drop to make. But en route to delivering a package for one of L.A.'s sleaziest defense attorneys, he's nearly run down by a car, chased through back alleys, and shot at. Only the instincts acquired while growing up on the streets of L.A. allow him to escape with his life, and with the package someone wants badly enough to kill for.

Attorney Nate Shepherd left a big firm to go out on his own. He sees nothing but opportunity when an out-of-town lawyer wants to hire him as local counsel on a high-profile murder case. Though his family worries that the case hits too close to home, Nate joins the defense team. When circumstances force him to take on a bigger role, Nate ignores his family’s fears and throws himself into his client’s defense.

One weekend, while Andrew Mason was on a fishing trip, his wife, Brie, vanished without a trace. Most everyone assumed Andy had got away with murder—it’s always the husband, isn’t it?—but the police could never build a strong case against him. For a while, Andy hit rock bottom—he drank too much to numb the pain, was abandoned by all his friends save one, nearly lost his business, and became a pariah in the place he once called home.

At 31, Michael Cantella is a rising star at Wall Street’s premier investment bank, Saxton Silvers. Everything is going according to plan until Ivy Layton, the love of his life, vanishes on their honeymoon in the Bahamas. Fast-forward four years. It’s the eve of his 35th birthday, and Michael is still on track: successful career, beautiful new wife, piles of money.

Defense attorney Leland Monroe lost it all: his big-city job, his reputation, and, worst of all, his loving wife. Now he’s back in his hometown to hit restart and repair the relationship with his troubled son. But the past is always present in a small town. Leland returns to find his high school sweetheart hasn’t had the easiest of lives - especially now that her son faces a death sentence for murdering his father.

Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.

Defense attorney David Nash has made a career out of setting monsters free — and no one does it better. Now a case has come to “the Ice Man” that could help cleanse Nash of the guilt and doubts that torment him: that rarest of all defendants, an innocent man.

Darkness has fallen on the city of Portland, Oregon. One by one, the wives of affluent and respected men are vanishing from their homes. The only clues to their disappearance are a single black rose and a note that reads, “Gone, But Not Forgotten.” It is the rebirth of a horror that has already devastated a community at the opposite end of the country — and, as it did then, terror and death will follow.Defense attorney Betsy Tannenbaum is trapped in a nightmare as the shadows of a killer darken her world.

Phillip Margolin, best selling author of The Undertaker's Widow, introduces the world to the first genuinely monstrous psychopath of the new century. Also available abridged.

Judge Richard Quinn is young, idealistic, and honest to a fault. That's why he's handed the most sensational homicide case in Oregon history. Locked in a race for the U.S. Senate, Ellen Crease gunned down the intruder who murdered her wealthy husband. In a single, brutal instant she became a widow, a victim, and a hero. Yet disturbing questions remain. What secrets did the man who started his fortune running mortuaries keep that might have cost him his life?

The first woman ever hired by legendary defense lawyer Matthew Reynolds, Tracy Cavanaugh cuts her teeth on a horrifying crime: the car-bomb murder of Oregon Supreme Court Justice Robert Griffen. Reynolds's client--and the chief suspect--is none other than the icy but celebrated prosecutor Abigail Griffen, the Justice's estranged wife. Tracy's research plunges her into a web of betrayal and revenge, of secret deals and hidden passions.

Charlie Webb is a third rate lawyer who graduated from a third rate law-school and, because he couldn’t get hired by any of the major law firms, has opened his own law firm, where he gets by handling cases for dubious associates from his youth and some court appointed cases. Described as “a leaky boat floating down the stream of life,” Charlie has led unremarkable life, personally and professionally. Until he’s appointed to be the attorney for a decidedly crackpot artist who calls himself Guido Sabatini (born Lawrence Weiss).

A woman stumbles onto a dark road in rural Oregon - tortured, battered, and bound. She tells a horrific story about being kidnapped, then tortured, until she finally managed to escape. She was the lucky one - two other women, with similar burns and bruises, were found dead. The surviving victim identifies the house where she was held captive, and the owner, Alex Mason - a prominent local attorney - is arrested.

Author Miles Van Meter is on a book tour to promote his sensational best seller Sleeping Beauty, a true-crime account of a deeply personal subject: the attack by a serial killer that left his twin sister, Casey, in a coma. Tonight the audience waits to hear Miles discuss recent developments in his sister's case, unaware that pieces of this complex puzzle of violence, unknown even to the author, are about to be revealed.

When private detective Dana Cutler is hired by an attorney with powerful political connections, the assignment seems simple enough: follow a pretty college student named Charlotte Walsh and report on where she goes and whom she sees. But then the unexpected happens.

Peter Hale is a young attorney with a lot to prove. Crossing his father, one of Portland's most powerful lawyers, was a costly mistake. Now, cut loose from his job and his inheritance, Peter's has landed in the public defender's office of a small Oregon town - and in the middle of a high-profile case that could make or break his career. His mentally handicapped client, accused of the savage murder of a college coed, faces the death penalty.