Phillip Margolin Proof Positive

Proof Positive

Phillip Margolin

HarperCollins, Jul 2006, $25.95

ISBN: 006089797X

Oregon state crime lab forensic expert Bernie Cashman is the recognized expert, a magician who seems to conjure up the impossible PROOF POSITIVE that sends many suspects to jail. He is the best at insuring a conviction. However, there is one slight drawback to Bernie's methodology. He has no moral compunction to faking the evidence that sends those he believes are guilty to prison. No one realizes that Bernie has become judge and jury as his results has made him the centerfold for those tough on crime.

However, his lesser colleague Mary Clark stumbles on Bernie's rigging the proof. Used to being adulated as a God, an irate Bernie knows he must rid the world of this do-gooder, but also needs a culprit, whom he finds in unhinged Jacob Cohen, to take the fall. Oregon defense attorney Amanda Jaffe takes on homeless Jacob as her client. His case though not related in any sense to another still seems familiar with the link being Bernie. Amanda investigates not realizing that this CSI is willing to kill anyone who tries to kick him off his pantheon perch on the top of Mount Olympus.

In many ways Bernie stars in this crime thriller as his fascinating in a macabre way actions and rationalizations are the focus of the tale even more so than Amanda is. Amanda remains an intriguing protagonist (see TIES THAT BIND and WILD JUSTICE) as her personal problems simmer (thank goodness) in the background. Using a macabre twist on the CSI adulation theme, Phillip Margolin provides a Hitchcockian thriller that readers will relish.

Harriet Klausner