Marilyn's Mystery Reads

As False Witness opens, attorney Karen Wyatt is being released from the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, Oregon’s prison for women.  She had been imprisoned for a year on false charges after exposing corruption in the Portland Police Department and the District Attorney’s office; she also was disbarred after that conviction.  Now she has been cleared of all charges and reinstated to the bar, as well as receiving a multi-million-dollar settlement.

When the story picks up three years later, we meet Congressman Thomas Horan.  He has completed a successful interrogation of a witness claiming that UFOs are flying over the United States.  She can offer no photographic proof of her assertions; it’s obvious that Horan doesn’t believe a word she’s saying.  He flies home to Oregon from Washington later that day, looking forward to relaxing and spending time with his wife, but immediately after dinner he receives a phone call and bolts out of their house without a word of explanation.

Three days later Horan is found on a trail in Silver Falls State Park.  When he’s brought to a Portland hospital, he’s questioned by the police and narrates a remarkable story.  He reluctantly tells the two detectives that “it was aliens” who kidnapped him, but he can’t remember who had called him or how he got to the state park and doesn’t want anyone investigating.  The police are stymied and decide not to take any action.  As one detective put it, “He disappeared.  Then he reappeared.  I’d say our job is done.”

The second section of the novel starts with a man named Jack Blackburn driving a 2019 Jaguar XJR 575, a car with a sticker price of just over $300,000.  When he’s stopped by the police he says that his friend Billy, the chauffeur for the ultra-wealthy Terrance Cogan, told him he could drive the car for a while and then return it to Cogan.  Blackburn says he doesn’t know where the owner lives although, as the officer who stopped him notes, the address is on the car’s registration papers in the glove compartment.

The officers put Jack in the back of their patrol car, but he’s not worried.  He’s sure that as soon as they contact Billy or Cogan. they’ll vouch for him.  But when the police go to the Cogan estate,  they find its owner lying in a pool of blood in the home’s massive living room.  When they return to their car, the next thing Jack hears is, “Mr. Blackburn, I am placing you under arrest for the murder of Terrance Cogan.”  And Karen becomes his lawyer through a program run by the Oregon Public Defense Commission, which provides legal services for those charged with criminal offenses but who are unable to pay for an attorney.

Phillip Margolin has written an outstanding novel that combines excellently written characters, a compelling plot, and a deep look into services provided for the poor in Oregon.  And I never saw the twist at the end coming!

You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

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