The Burning Man [Hardcover]

Phillip Margolin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1996

The author of Gone, But Not Forgotten delivers a fast-paced legal thriller featuring an arrogant attorney who attempts to improve his character by becoming the public defender of a retarded man on trial for murder. 200,000 first printing. $200,000 ad/promo. Tour.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Playing off the spookiness of recent recovered memory trials, Margolin, in his fifth thriller (e.g., After Dark, LJ 3/15/95), layers the good, the bad, and the ugly of lawyering into a crackling tale of redemption for two young men. The tale is set in Eastern Oregon, where a mildly retarded man is charged with the brutal slaying of a young woman. His lawyer, having never tried a capital crime case before, fumbles badly, but a glimmer of native wit gets him back on track. Working the genre with a discipline some popular authors have begun to ignore, Margolin relies on a few crafty stereotypes to keep up the pace and simplify the action. The dialogs in the jailhouse and the interrogation scenes, though, are intense and fierce. The moral zigzags of desperate people are laid out to contrast with the lawyer and his client as they feint and weave to avoid the ultimate penalty. This is a can't-go-wrong choice for popular collections.?Barbara Conaty, Library of Congress
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Margolin may well be the Danielle Steel of mysteries. His books have the same trite but oh-so-true characters, familiar but nonetheless gripping plots, consummately bad villains, and perfectly flawed heroes. Young attorney Peter Hale, spoiled, conceited, and with a perpetual chip on his shoulder, wants to prove he's as good a lawyer as his father. So when Dad suffers a heart attack, Peter takes on one of the old man's toughest cases and ends up costing a paralyzed woman her million-dollar settlement. Furious, the senior Hale writes Peter out of his will and exiles him to a small town to work as a public defender. Peter doesn't know which is worse, not having his cappucino machine or dealing with nasty criminals. So he goes behind his new boss' back (Won't this guy ever learn?) and takes on the defense of a retarded man accused of murder. If Peter loses the case, the accused goes to Death Row, but if he wins, it's a chance to redeem himself in Dad's eyes. Of course, things go wrong from the git-go, and Peter's stupidity nearly ruins everything. But finally, from the depths of his jerky little soul, something worthwhile emerges. With terrific courtroom scenes, great lawyerly dialogue, and a plot that won't quit, Margolin's latest is sure to parallel a Danielle Steel novel in one more way: bankable mass-market appeal. Emily Melton

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 344 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (August 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385480539
• ISBN-13: 978-0385480536
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,356,384 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I grew up in New York City and Levittown, New York. In 1965, I graduated from the American University in Washington, D.C., with a bachelor's degree in government. I spent 1965 to 1967 in Liberia, West Africa, as a Peace Corps volunteer, and graduated from New York University School of Law in 1970, working my way through the last two years by teaching junior high school at night in the South Bronx. My first job following law school was a clerkship with Herbert M. Schwab, the chief judge of the Oregon Court of Appeals, and from 1972 until 1996, I was in private practice, specializing in criminal defense at the trial and appellate levels. As an appellate attorney I have appeared before the United States Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the Oregon Supreme Court, and the Oregon Court of Appeals. As a trial attorney, I handled all sorts of criminal cases in state and federal court, and have represented approximately thirty people charged with homicide, several of whom faced the death penalty. I was the first Oregon attorney to use battered women's syndrome to defend a woman accused of murdering her spouse.

Since 1996, I have been writing full-time. All of my novels have been bestsellers. Heartstone, my first novel, was nominated by the Mystery Writers of America for an Edgar for best original paperback mystery of 1978. My second novel, The Last Innocent Man, was made into an HBO movie. Gone, But Not Forgotten has been sold to more than twenty-five foreign publishers and was made into a miniseries starring Brooke Shields. It was also the Main Selection of the Literary Guild. After Dark was a Book of the Month Club selection. The Burning Man, my fifth novel, published in August 1996, was the Main Selection of the Literary Guild and a Reader's Digest condensed book. My sixth novel, The Undertaker's Widow, was published in 1998 and was a Book of the Month Club selection. Wild Justice (HarperCollins, September 2000) was a Main Selection of the Literary Guild, a selection of the Book of the Month Club, and was nominated for an Oregon Book Award. The Associate was published by HarperCollins in August 2001, and Ties that Bind was published by HarperCollins in March 2003. My tenth novel, Sleeping Beauty, was published by HarperCollins on March 23, 2004. Lost Lake was published by HarperCollins in March 2005 and was nominated for an Oregon Book Award. Proof Positive was published by HarperCollins in July 2006. Executive Privilege was published by HarperCollins in May 2008 and in 2009 was given the Spotted Owl Award for the Best Northwest Mystery. Fugitive was published by HarperCollins on June 2, 2009. Willamette Writers gave me the 2009 Distinguished Northwest Writers Award. My latest novel, Supreme Justice, was published by HarperCollins in May 2010. My next novel, Capitol Murder, will come out in April 2012.

On October 11, 2011, HarperCollins will publish Vanishing Acts, my first Young Adult novel, which I wrote with my daughter, Ami Margolin Rome. Also in October, the short story "The Case of the Purloined Paget," which I wrote with my brother, Jerry, will be published by Random House in the anthology A Study in Sherlock.

In addition to my novels, I have published short stories and nonfiction articles in magazines and law journals. My short story "The Jailhouse Lawyer" was selected for the anthology The Best American Mystery Stories 1999. The House on Pine Terrace was selected for the anthology The Best American Mystery Stories 2010.

From 1996 to 2009 I was the president and chairman of the Board of Chess for Success. I am still heavily involved in the program, and returned to the board after a one-year absence in 2010. Chess for Success is a nonprofit charity that uses chess to teach study skills to elementary- and middle-school children in Title I schools . From 2007 to the present, I have been on the Board of Literary Arts, which sponsors the Oregon Book Awards, the Writers in the Schools program, and Portland Arts and Lectures.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A MUST READ LEGAL THRILLER!!!, December 7, 2001

By 

Mac Blair "Mac Blair" (Huntingdon, TN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Burning Man (Mass Market Paperback)

I have read other Margolin books but this one is the best I have read. It started a little slow and the main character, Peter Hale, made mistakes a lawyer should not make reguardless the field of law he is in. Hale has been sent to Oregon because he has messed up where he is. He is caught up in the middle of a murder case involving a mentally retarded man. Did the man murder the woman? All things point to him doing in at first. But there are many differnet things involved. As Assistant DA who will stop at nothing, legal or not. A brother-in-law, who is also an attorney, that just does not seem right about the case. If the retarted man is convicted can Peter safe him before he is sentenced? Who really is the killer? You will be surprised, at least I was. A book I did not want to put down. I wanted to read faster and faster to see if Gary, the retarted man, would be saved. I could not believe he would be convicted. I thought if I read faster the crime would be solved faster, I guess. Was there an undercover cop? If so which one. If you like legal mysteries you will like this one.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A capitivating mystery, July 7, 2003

By 

Busy Mom (Ohio) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Burning Man (Mass Market Paperback)

Young and arrogrant, Peter Hale was sent to a back-woods town for a lesson in humility after fumbling a major case for his father. Driven from his life of priviledge where nothing but the finest would do ~~ Peter takes on another case and this time, learns a lesson about human nature. He took on a case of a mentally-retarded man who is accused of killing a young college co-ed. This same man was also caught just a few weeks prior as a peeping tom at the local college. This man is also a brother-in-law of Peter's former college classmate ~~ another reason why Peter took on the case.

This book is full of twists and turns that Margolin is famous for ~~ and his writing captivates your attention from beginning to the end. Margolin shows human nature at its worst and shows it at its best ~~ and though you thought you have it all figured out ~~ he surprises you again. It's a fun and fast legal thriller ~~ perfect for summer reading. I had a blast reading this book and so did everyone who I loaned this book to!

7-7-03

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The burning man gets burned, April 20, 2003

By 

Kyle Hine (Bedford, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Burning Man (Mass Market Paperback)

Reading a book was usually challenging for me to do, I could never get myself motivated and ready to read a book such as The Burning Man. This book took a few pages for me to get into it, but after a while I found myself not being able to put it down.The book was a well-written murder mystery, with many different twists in it.
It starts out with Peter being a lawyer in a big time company, which is his dad's law firm. After an incident with his father, Peter thinks he can win the case for his dad's client. Soon after that though his father disowns him in a way. After the stunt he pulled his dad basically disowned him. Peter's first couple nights that he was in the small town of Whitaker were lonely; he wanted a woman around so he tried to meet a few girls since he was in the college town. He finally got to meet with whom he would be working.
His name was Amos Geary, but soon he left him when he met his friend Steve who was a lawyer in the small town also. Peter got a chance to erase his past when he was offered a case that involved a murder suspect. The murder suspect was Gary; he was the son-in-law of Steve. Gary was also mentally handicapped. For some reason Steve wanted Peter to take over this case, which shows why later in the book. Gary was the only suspect, which seemed to be strange at the time. With Steve's wife Donna helping Peter on the case it seemed to open up different leads in the book. With two drug addicts who show up through out the book it seems they could be involved with the murder. Steve was trying to get a big loan for apartments, which would serve as a place for people to stay if they were to represent the Olympics. When plans fall through with the loan, and also new evidence appears it makes for a twist like you could never believe. Though out the story Peter and everyone involved with helping Gary wasn't sure if Gary's brain could think of such a thing as this. In a small town like Whitaker it showed that secrets between high people may pay off in the beginning but with a small atmosphere things will leak out.
The experience I had with this book was good; in other books I could just have put them down and not worried about it. But, this book was different having many different plots to each character made the book more interesting and suspenseful. With many different characters it was hard to keep track of who was who. The author though made a back round for every character and a description of them that helped in the realistic aspect of the book. This was a realistic book I thought for being a fiction book. The case was real and what happens though out the book with people and what they end up doing just seems it could happen anywhere. The language was good at points with swearing happening at the high points in the book, it seemed to fit what would be said in a real situation. This book along with being a murder mystery and a legal thriller, it also had kind of a love story between it. The nice thing about the love aspect of it, it keeps you thinking till the end of the story when it all comes together. All the points in the book don't tie together right away which makes it a good thriller.
If you like books that keep you on the edge of your seat, and keep you wondering though out the book this is the book for you. If you are someone who reads books and tries to figure out the ending before you get there this is definitely the book for you. This will leave you guessing the whole time. I recommend this book to anyone who just wants a good book to read. Take it from me I don't read much and I wanted to read the whole thing. That should give a hint on how good this book is.