I’ve been reading this series in order and I just don’t think Betrayal is as good as the 6 priors in the Robin Lockwood books. Parts are quite good, especially an embedded mystery and its resolution.   And the courtroom drama is good, as usual.  But, too much of it is so-so. The plot here is original though and I can say that about the whole series to date.

Betrayal 
by Philip Margolin 
2023
Read by Theresa Plummber 7h 20m
Rating – B+ / legal thriller 
(#7 in Robin Lockwood series)

Robin Lockwood gets a call from someone named Mandy Kerrigan,  a woman whom she used to fight when they were both  professional wrestlers. In fact, Robin lost her last fight to this woman before she turned to law school full time. Now Mandy is in jail, charged with murder, while Robin is an up-and-coming criminal defense attorney while Mandy is on the downside of her career.  But Robin takes the case.

The tale starts out with a local (Portland, OR) organized crime group getting the money owed to them by arranging car wrecks and collecting on the insurance from the resulting personal injuries. Then one day a women is more than injured; she’s killed and her husband is none too happy about it. And then someone else is killed – erased from the planet. And then there’s a whole suburban family of 4 – killed in their home.

Mandy is arrested basically because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.   It takes Robin and her crew to get to untangle the sticky web and get to the bottom of things.  Meanwhile, Robin has met a man she actually dates twice. That’s nice and it’s not overdone in the slightest.