The Burning Man by Phillip Margolin

Peter Hale is a young attorney struggling to make his own mark in his father's venerable law firm when he is presented with the opportunity of a lifetime.
During the trial of a multimillion-dollar case, Peter's father, the lead counsel, suffers a heart attack and asks Peter to move for a mistrial until
he's feeling better. Peter decides this is his only chance to prove to his father that he is the terrific lawyer he knows himself to be, and he chooses to
carry on with the case against his father's wishes. In his zeal to prove himself, Peter neglects his client and ends up losing everything--the case, his
job, and his father.

Unemployed and disinherited, Peter takes the only job he is offered--that of a public defender in a small Oregon town. He hopes that if he can make good
there, he can reinstate himself in his father's good graces. But his ambition again gets the best of him when he takes on a death-penalty case, representing
a mentally retarded man accused of the brutal hatchet murder of a college coed. He's in way over his head, and it's only when Peter realizes that his greed and
his ego may end up killing his client that he begins to understand what it really takes to be a good lawyer--and to become a man.

The Chicago Tribune said "It takes a really crafty storyteller to put people on the edge of their seats and keep them there. But Phillip Margolin
does just that." In The Burning Man, with its intricate plotting, legal intrigue, and many twists and surprises, Phillip Margolin has done it again.
This is sure to be his biggest bestseller yet.

Reader Reviews
The burning man gets burned, April 20, 2003 Reviewer: Kyle Hine from Bedford, PA 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.