The Perfect Alibi

A Novel

By: Phillip Margolin

Narrated by: Thérèse Plummer

Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

"With lots of twists and turns to engage the listener and an entertaining narrator, this is a light and entertaining mystery." (Sound Commentary)

The "master of heart-pounding suspense" - New York Times best seller Phillip Margolin - returns with a new legal thriller starring Robin Lockwood.

A young woman accuses a prominent local college athlete of rape. Convicted with the help of indisputable DNA evidence, the athlete swears his innocence and threatens both his lawyer and his accuser as he's sent to prison. Not long after, there's another rape, and the DNA test shows that the same person committed both rapes - which is seemingly impossible since the man convicted of the first rape was in prison at the time of the second one. 

Now, the convicted athlete, joined by a new lawyer, is granted a new trial and bail. Shortly thereafter, his original lawyer disappears and his law partner is murdered. 

Robin Lockwood is a young lawyer with a prestigious small law firm and a former MMA fighter who helped pay for Yale Law School with her bouts. She is representing the victim of the first rape for her civil lawsuit against her rapist, who is now convinced the rapist is stalking her and trying to intimidate her. 

At the same time, another client is up on a murder charge - one that should be dismissed as self-defense - but the DA trying the case is determined to bring it to trial. Now, she has to mastermind two impossible cases, trying to find the hidden truth that links the two of them. 

Phillip Margolin, the master of the legal thriller, returns in one of his twistiest, most compelling crime audiobooks yet.

©2019 Phillip Margolin (P)2019 Macmillan Audio

Excellent legal thriller...

Wow, this is a rape case like no other. And let's not forget a simultaneous murder mystery as well. The publisher's summary gives more than enough information so I won't add more as I don't want to spoil this book for anyone.

Philip Margolin's writing is excellent. His characters are believable and the storyline is plausible. The legality of the situations are realistic and tense. What appears as cut and dry may not be.
This is a fast paced misleading story full of deceptions.

Therese Plummer's narration is excellent.
This book has my HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION.
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Engrossing

I have enjoyed reading Phillip Margolin’s books. In particular I enjoyed the Amanda Jaffe series. I think the Jaffe series has ended. This is the second book that features Robin Lockwood. She was in “The Third Victim”. Maybe this is a new series.

The book is well written. The book takes place in Oregon. A woman was raped. This book is about the civil lawsuit. The plot twists and turns. The suspense builds throughout the story. The characters are interesting as is the DNA science. I enjoyed the appearance of Amanda Jaffe toward the end of the book.

The book is seven hours six minutes. Therese Plummer does an excellent job narrating the book. Plummer is an actress, voice-over artist and an award-winning audiobook narrator. I enjoyed listening to her voice.

Not bad but...

The beginning of the book was really good but the middle and the end were very slow. The ending had good twist but by that time I didn’t care as much because I had been bored with the book since half way through

Another Solid Margolin Novel

Phillip Margolin is one of my favorite authors, and remains so after I listened to this book. There's a lot going on, but I found the plot easy to follow even as I listened while driving or on my morning walk. It's interesting how some characters who are sympathetic or unsympathetic switch places in the listener's mind by the end of the book.

What Margolin doesn't do is get into deep psychological profiles of his key subjects. This is a more straight-forward novel than some authors write. He gives us enough to understand the characters and what drives them, but there are no moments akin to Hamlets soliloquy in which a character wrestles with demons or exposes deep, dark thoughts that help us understand his or her actions. If that's your cup of tea, you maybe disappointed in The Perfect Alibi.

If, on the other hand, you're looking for a narrative that moves quickly, intertwines three distinctly different legal cases, exposes subjects to plausible danger, and brings the narrative to some surprising conclusions, this book's for you.

My one criticism is that he didn't finish off two of the subplots as neatly as I would have liked. One ended abruptly without a satisfactory outcome. The other sort of fizzled. The endings were more than adequate, but not as compelling as the ending to the third subplot.

Perfect Alibi :: Perfect Entertainment

This story is excellent entertainment with several plot lines which are weaved together perfectly. There are many characters to remember, which can be off-putting in the beginning but if you hang with the story you will be rewarded. This story is about lies, dishonesty and murders ... how many lies do you have to tell to cover the first, etc etc. and when lying is not enough and only murders will do!

Phillip Margolin is an excellent storyteller. I have read/listen to several of his novels and this is one of his best. In the beginning, this story seemed to be too predictable, and a few literary devices are used to move the story along ... but once I got into the meat of the story, I was hooked and I had to know what was going to happen next.

The narrator, Therese Plummer, is an excellent performer. In the beginning, I thought I would not have patience with her style but she uses her voice very skillfully. I recommend this novel.

Not interesting at all

I like the first book a lot and was excited to read book 2 but it just wasn’t good. 6 hours book and about 60 characters to remember or follow. It is all over the place.

PASS THIS ONE UP

After the first few chapters I forced myself to keep listening waiting for it to get better or tie together and finally decided not to waste the time. Interesting concept, however the writing was boring. The reader was fine, but when she started doing the male voices. ummmm NO.

Fantastic! Every single bit!

This is an incredible series! I love how we have several different cases going on. Somehow they end up mostly intertwined... or do they? It's crazy the way this book goes. Bit everywhere.

My only real negative complaint is that there are so many people to keep up with. While listening to an audiobook it does get a smidge overwhelming. And I just can't remember like I used to!

I do love meeting up with most of the same crew. I feel like I'm getting to know people. I sure do hope we get some more on this group. Narration was perfect! I wouldn't change a thing about the narration.

Really Good! Great Narration!

Wow this book was good.

There are several stories/cases going on at once and all seem to blend together eventually.

I really like this writing style. Always something happening and never a dull moment. I really like Rachel Lockwood she is a great character.

As for the narration, it was great. I really like Therese Plummer, She does a great job on all the voices including the men. She has a nice reading voice and reads with emotion. Excellent narrator.

Crowded.

2.5 stars

It has been several years since I have read a novel by Phillip Margolin. It only took me to chapter 3 to remember why.

I don’t have the short term memory capacity to keep up with the host of first and last names Margolin throws into his readers laps; oftentimes by way of a random off-topic tangent or abrupt switch of POV.

I remember this being the case in his Amanda Jaffee series. I didn’t realize she was the main character until Book 2. She, like Rockin Robin here in The Last alibi, got such minimal play time in the story she never stood out much amongst so many others. Being set in the same Oregon state, Amanda makes a brief and underwhelming cameo here as well...

I do enjoy a good legal thriller, but this felt like a short story filled with empty calories to meet a page count minimum. And after 69 chapters I still don’t know the results of the off-duty cop shooting briefly mentioned in Chapter 8. Loose knots all around.