Worthy Brown’s Daughter – Phillip Margolin

Well known for his acclaimed contemporary legal thrillers, New York Times bestselling author Phillip Margolin this time turns to nineteenth-century Oregon. Worthy Brown’s Daughter is a novel which combines a heartbreaking story of slavery and murder with his trademark plot twists.

Recently widowed lawyer Matthew Penny agrees to help Worthy Brown, a newly freed slave. He must rescue his teenage daughter, Roxanne, from their former master, a powerful Portland lawyer. Worthy’s lawsuit sets in motion a series of events that lead to his arrest for murder.  It also creates an agonizing moral dilemma that could send either Worthy or Matthew to the scaffold.

At the same time, hanging judge Jed Tyler, a powerful politician with a barren personal life, becomes infatuated with a beautiful gold-digger who is scheming to murder a wealthy businessman. When the businessman appears to die from natural causes, the woman produces a forged contract of marriage.  Should Tyler risk everything for his irrational obsession?

Philip Margolin grew up in New York City and Levittown, New York. He admits that it was an overdose of Perry Mason in his childhood that led to his glittering career as a defence lawyer.  He has defended a series of high profile cases, and was the first Oregon attorney to use battered women’s syndrome to defend a woman accused of murdering her spouse.
He took up writing full-time in 1996 and his string of best-selling novels include Heartstone, The Last Innocent Man, After Dark, The Associate and Ties that Bind.  He has also written a young adult novel – Vanishing Acts (2011) – with his daughter, Ami Margolin Rome.

He is also a former president and chairman of the Board of Chess for Success, a charity that uses chess to teach study skills to children.