Friday Feature Author Interview With Elise Cooper: The Darkest Place by Phillip Margolin

Book Description

Robin Lockwood is an increasingly prominent defense attorney in the Portland community. A Yale graduate and former MMA fighter, she’s becoming known for her string of innovative and successful defense strategies. As a favor to a judge, Robin takes on the pro bono defense of a reprehensible defendant charged with even more reprehensible crimes. But what she doesn’t know—what she can’t know—is how this one decision, this one case, will wreak complete devastation on her life and plans.

As she recovers from those consequences, Robin heads home to her small town of Elk Grove and the bosom of her family. As she tries to recuperate, a unique legal challenge presents itself—Marjorie Loman, a surrogate, is accused of kidnapping the baby she carried for another couple, and assaulting that couple in the process. There’s no question that she committed these actions but that’s not the same as being guilty of the crime. As Robin works to defend her client, she learns that Marjorie Loman has been hiding under a fake identity and is facing a warrant for her arrest for another, even more serious crime. And buried within the truth may once again be unexpected, deadly consequences.

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Elise’s Thoughts

The Darkest Place by Phillip Margolin brings the reader right into the courtroom.  As a former defense attorney, he uses his personal experience to create a suspenseful trial. There he explores the two sides of the Shaken Baby Syndrome and if postpartum psychosis really causes paranoid delusions.

The title plays into the personal story of the main character, Robin Lockwood, when she suffers a devasting loss.  Anyone who has lost a loved one knows they can go down to a very dark place. The impact on Robin’s life has brought on depression. She goes home to gain solace from her mother who chastises her and reminds her that she was a prominent defense attorney, Yale graduate, and a former MMA fighter.  Her mother sympathizes with Robin’s loss but knows she must make a new life for herself.

As she is recovering, she is asked to assist on a case in her hometown. It involves the defendant being accused of kidnapping, abusing a baby, and assaulting a couple. Marjorie Loman is accused of kidnapping the baby for whom she was a surrogate and assaulting the adoptive parents. Working on her defense Robin gets experts to disavow the Shaken Baby Syndrome.

Robin also discovers that Marjorie has an arrest warrant back in Oregon in connection with the torture and murder of her husband, Joel, with whom she was involved in a contentious divorce and who had wiped out their joint bank accounts. Joel also had been embezzling millions from his company and was being threatened by gangsters.

This story has it all including kidnapping, murder, assault, surrogacy, shaken baby syndrome, theft, divorce, postpartum depression, embezzlement, and stolen identity. Margolin puts some twists in to make the story even more interesting.

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Author Interview

Elise Cooper: How did you get the idea for the story?

Phil Margolin: The Oregon Criminal Defense Organization is a fabulous group that I have been a member of for centuries.  Even though I stopped practicing law in 1996 I stayed a member.  They have seminars.  There was one on junk science which fascinates me.  One of the lectures is about the Shaken Baby Syndrome. Because there are two sides, I wanted to write a trial about it where both sides are put on display.  I also wanted to have Robin return home to her roots.

EC:  Can you describe the Shaken Baby Syndrome?

PM:  It is a child who might have brain damage. But there are no bruises on them. No broken bones.  How is it explained? After reading about it, I do not think it should be used in court. No one can have any scientific proof because it can never be done.  The biomechanical experiments showed that no one can generate enough force to cause those types of injuries.  Scientific theory should never be used, and this one can never be tested with actual children. Of course, babies should not be shaken, but that is not the question.  What must be asked, will the severity of the shaking cause injuries?

EC:  How would you describe Robin?

PM:  This is my seventh book with her. All are stand alone.  In my first book, she was a young lawyer who gets a dream job with a brilliant attorney that shows signs of dementia.  She used to be a professional fighter.  She grows up with older brothers who are wrestlers. Robin is brilliant.  Now she is grief stricken, depressed, and a survivor.

EC:  You also lost a loved one?

PM:  Yes, my first wife Doreen. I went through a horrible of 2.5 years being miserable, depressed, and missed her a lot. She was gorgeous, brilliant, and the nicest person. There is not a day goes by that I do not think of her. I am now remarried to Melanie, getting very lucky. She is incredibly smart and built a business into a multi dollar corporation.  Yes, I did use a lot of my own feelings.

EC:  How would you describe Marjorie, the antagonist?

PM:  Hardened, angry, a manipulator, and shows no remorse. She does have this postpartum psychosis after she gives birth to the baby, and it is taken away from her.

EC:  Why the Perry Mason reference?

PM:  My editor thought it would be interesting to use.  This is from my background.  I devoured all the adult murder mysteries in elementary school.  I read almost every Perry Mason book and decided then I wanted to be a lawyer when I grew up. It was easy to put into Robin’s background. Her mother watches reruns and now appreciates what Robin does after seeing her in action.

EC:  What about the next book?

PM:  It will also be a Robin book.  It opens with her having a nightmare and struggling with her loss. Then it jumps to a key witness admitting he did the murder to his lawyer. The lawyer knows there is a guy rotting on death row who is innocent but cannot do anything about it because it was a confidential communication. It comes out in November and is titled Murder at Black Oaks. The wife of this lawyer is very wealthy.  She recreated a manor house with secret passages and dungeons. Everyone there including Robin and her investigator are sealed off because of mud slides. They found someone stabbed to death in the caged elevator.

THANK YOU!!

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