New York Times bestselling author Phillip Margolin returns with an explosive thriller about how a young tabloid reporter’s “paranoid” theories just might be true. 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 …
New York Times bestselling author Phillip Margolin returns with an explosive thriller about how a young tabloid reporter’s “paranoid” theories just might be true. 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.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, in a cheap motel room in Washington, D.C., 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 Gen. Morris Wingate, a presidential candidate, and for years every-one 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 murderer, telling the truth about one of the nation's most respected soldiers and politicians? Or are their charges a product 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.
This book offers a bit of everything -- part adventure story, part spy story, part crime story, part courtroom drama. It's quite readable, and a bit of a page turner, but has too many plot holes and editing flaws to get more than 3 stars.
The author seems to lose track of his characters, and forgets what they know or don't know, and where they've been or haven't been. An editor or proofreader should have picked this sort of thing up, and surely a publisher as big as HarperCollins should be able to employ a few of those.
