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'The Associate' by Phillip Margolin

Books in Brief

Thursday, November 15, 2001

By Robert Croan, Post-Gazette Senior Editor

	The Associate By Phillip Margolin HarperCollins $26.00

Daniel Ames, the central character of Phillip Margolin’s latest, is reveling in the life he has made for himself. Abused as a child, he lived on the street for a while and was arrested twice for minor offenses that didn’t stick.

Now, Ames has become a lawyer, working as an associate in the prestigious Portland law firm of Reed, Briggs. Still, he fears that his hold on success is tenuous.

At the moment though, things could not be better -- that is, until Ames is hoodwinked into making a serious mistake with evidence in a drug company lawsuit.

Senior partner Reed fires him for bungling the job, then relents and invites Ames to his country house to discuss new and secret information. When Ames arrives, he finds Reed shot to death.

He is arrested and jailed on suspicion of murdering the boss who had fired him and, once out on bail, he must solve the murder and the mystery of the lawsuit.

It’s all pretty far-fetched. Even a rookie lawyer would act more sensibly than Ames does.

And as unbelievable as Ames’ actions are, the events that allow him to pursue justice for himself and those around him (along with an unlikely romantic subplot) stretch the reader’s credibility even further.

Margolin makes it work -- but barely -- by means of his swift-moving action and vivid prose.