Vanessa Kohler wakes from a sound sleep in a California lakeside mansion to find her host, a young Congressman, near death--he's been tortured, his safe is wide open--and the man who seems to have attacked him, is about to flee the house, is Carl Price, someone she once loved. Missing are the documents that prove Vanessa's father, the General, runs a covert military unit of assassins who answer only to him. Once the General arrives on the scene and hustles her off to a mental hospital where she's held for more than a year, her charges are dismissed as the rantings of a crazy woman. A decade later Carl Price reappears, caught in an incident at a Little League game in Oregon that briefly makes the national news and thus brings him to Vanessa's notice again. But by now she's a tabloid reporter, so even those who don't know about her stint in the asylum won't take her charges against the General seriously. And Carl Price may have killed the Congressman, but he's the only person who can prove that the Unit exists; if Vanessa doesn't get him before the General has him killed, he'll never be able to corroborrate her story, and the General may well be elected President.

Vanessa's a more interesting, if less likeable and engaging heroine than Ami, the woman lawyer who tries to help the man she knows as Dan Morelli, a.k.a. Carl Price, who makes beautiful furniture, lives comfortably in the apartment over her garage, and is a surrogate father to her young son. But the official records of Carl Price reveal a whole other side of her friend and client, and when the psychiatrist to whom Dan has also revealed his alter identity and the General's secret is tortured and killed in the same way the Congressman was, she's not certain whom to believe. The complicated plot is a little over the top, but Margolin drives his thriller to its bloody denouement with the same fast pace and velocity that will probably drive it to the bestseller list, just like his previous books. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly
Like the lake of its title, Margolin's latest suspense novel (a hybrid with traces of legal thriller and whodunit and a big debt to The Manchurian Candidate) is smooth on the surface with tumultuous secrets lurking beneath. In Portland, Ore., lawyer and single mom Ami Vergano is pleased to take in handsome handyman Dan Morelli as a tenant, since he provides a positive male role model for her 10-year-old son, Ryan. Meanwhile, across the country in Washington, tightly wound tabloid reporter Vanessa Kohler spins elaborate paranoid fantasies (or are they?) involving personal danger and government conspiracy. These two women—and their respective plot threads—come together when Dan's volatility turns a Little League game into a crime scene, and Vanessa steps forward to support him, at considerable risk. But this is only the beginning of a labyrinthine plot built on twists and surprises. Hint: Vanessa's father is an influential general and political power broker. Margolin isn't the most original writer, but what he lacks in style he makes up for in clarity. Plotting is his strong suit. The artful arrangement of the story's episodes keeps the suspense high, and the author fills in the puzzle shrewdly, with small pieces from all over the chronology. The surprises keep coming, even after the story settles mostly into a courtroom drama, with Ami defending Dan on a high-stakes charge. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
It's a mystery why Margolin, the criminal-defense lawyer turned novelist, isn't at least as big as, say, John Grisham. Overall he's a more polished writer, and his stories have an intellectual depth that Grisham's more formulaic potboilers frequently lack. This time the central character, Vanessa Kohler, is a reporter working for Exposed, a tabloid newspaper. She has a troubled psychological history, stemming from her relationship with her father, a high-level military man who's now running for president. Vanessa has written more than a few stories (and one unpublished book) about an alleged government conspiracy masterminded by her father. When Vanessa discovers that a presumed-dead man is very much alive, she sees her opportunity to take down her father and prove that she is not just a conspiracy nut. As usual, Margolin touches on some heavy issues: mental instability, perception versus reality, paranoia. But this is a crime novel, not a treatise, and it delivers the goods, with plenty of action, suspense, and danger. Readers familiar with Margolin's work, especially such fine early novels as Gone but Not Forgotten (1993), will know what to expect here. Newcomers will immediately want to round up all his previous books. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

FROM THE PUBLISHER

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.

On the other side of the continent, ex-mental patient Vanessa Kohler, a reporter for Exposed, a tabloid that specializes in alien abduction stories, watches a piece on television about the little league massacre and quickly places a call to the FBI. For years she's been telling anyone who will listen about a vast government conspiracy to conceal a secret military unit headed by General Morris Wingate, a presidential candidate, and for years everyone has dismissed her stories. But when Vanessa sees Dan Morelli fighting, she believes she's found the key to proving that her theories are true.

Vanessa hires Ami Vergano to represent Morelli, who is charged with attempted murder, and Ami is drawn into Vanessa's paranoid world. Are Vanessa, a former mental patient, and Morelli, a confessed mass murder, telling the truth about one of the nation's most respected soldiers and politicians? Or are their charges the products of two sick minds? Ami has to decide who and what to believe in Phillip Margolin's most exciting and surprising thriller since his breakout bestseller Gone, But Not Forgotten.

SYNOPSIS

Vanessa Kohler is a tabloid reporter living and working in Washington DC. She writes fantastic stories about a vast government conspiracy to cover up a secret military unit headed by General Wingate, a popular presidential candidate. Most dismiss her as a paranoid crackpot using sensationalism to sell papers. But a few powerful men know better, and they've gone to great lengths to discredit her.

But by chance Vanessa discovers that a key player in this story - long assumed dead - may be living under a new identity. Vietnam vet Carl Rice, who was involved in a secret military operation that resulted in the murder of a congressman. Vanessa knows Rice holds the key to proving her theories - and demonstrating General Wingate may not be the man he appears to be.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Like the lake of its title, Margolin's latest suspense novel (a hybrid with traces of legal thriller and whodunit and a big debt to The Manchurian Candidate) is smooth on the surface with tumultuous secrets lurking beneath. In Portland, Ore., lawyer and single mom Ami Vergano is pleased to take in handsome handyman Dan Morelli as a tenant, since he provides a positive male role model for her 10-year-old son, Ryan. Meanwhile, across the country in Washington, tightly wound tabloid reporter Vanessa Kohler spins elaborate paranoid fantasies (or are they?) involving personal danger and government conspiracy. These two women-and their respective plot threads-come together when Dan's volatility turns a Little League game into a crime scene, and Vanessa steps forward to support him, at considerable risk. But this is only the beginning of a labyrinthine plot built on twists and surprises. Hint: Vanessa's father is an influential general and political power broker. Margolin isn't the most original writer, but what he lacks in style he makes up for in clarity. Plotting is his strong suit. The artful arrangement of the story's episodes keeps the suspense high, and the author fills in the puzzle shrewdly, with small pieces from all over the chronology. The surprises keep coming, even after the story settles mostly into a courtroom drama, with Ami defending Dan on a high-stakes charge. Agent, Jean Naggar. 5-city author tour. (Mar. 1) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews