Name of Book: Murder at Black Oaks
Author: Philip Margolin
Series: Robin Lockwood
Publisher: Saint Martin’s Press - Minotaur Books
Genre: Mystery Thriller
Pub Date: November 8, 2022
My Rating: 4.4 Stars

This is my seventh Philip Margolin novel and book #6 in the Robin Lockwood series and yep this is my sixth Robin Lockwood! Needless to say I am a fan of both!

Robin is a Defense Attorney in Portland but while she attended Yale she was known as a great MMA fighter. Must admit this sure comes in handy as Robin sure seems to attract some nasty guys.

In Book #5 ~ That story starts out happy as Robin and her fiancé Jeff Hodges are celebrating their engagement. But Robin is called in on a case and since Jeff works as an investigator for Robin both he and Robin are in the courtroom. Chaos erupts! Shots are fired and Jeff is seriously injured and dies in the hospital.
This story starts on the second anniversary of Jeff’s death which is still very difficult for Robin.

Robin is summoned by Nelly Melville the daughter of retired District Attorney Frank Melville to meet with him at his Black Oaks manor on the top of Solitude Mountain near Portland. Frank and his wife were in a terrible accident and now he has to use a wheelchair.
The manor is a re-creation of a famous spooky English manor built in 1673. The Legend is that the manor is cursed and so far everyone who has lived there has met with a horrible death!

Frank wants Robin's help in righting a wrongful conviction. As a lawyer for a key person who testified against Jose Alvarez which sent him to prison, Frank is unable to reveal what he knew due to attorney client confidence. He asks for Robin’s help. With her investigators she is able to get the conviction was overturned. Although Jose is grateful he is also very bitter about havening to have spent 30 years in prison.

Frank is so pleased with what Robin achieved and wants to celebrate. He invites Robin and Ken Breland her investigator to Black Oaks and asks if they would escort Jose Alvarez. He has also invited his lawyer Justin Trent and Corey Rockland an actor.
Rockland is invite under the premise that Frank wants to finance his film; however Frank is on a crusade to release those wrongfully sent to prison and suspects that Rockland is the person who killed his wife.

After dinner Frank remains for a drink with Shelia his fiancé. She walks him to the elevator then walks up the stairs (as the elevator is not large enough for the wheelchair and another person).
The elevator gets stuck which it often does ~this time the reason is because someone killed Frank with a knife connected to the original curse connected to mansion.

Ending had a twist I didn’t see coming! Actually a couple twists that had me thinking okay whodunit?
Enjoyable ~ quick read: Now looking forward to Robin Lockwood Book #7.

BTW: If you are an audiobook fan, the audio is usually narrator by one of my fav audiobook performer Theresa Plummer!!

Want to thank NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press ~ Minotaur Books for this early eGalley.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for November 8, 2022

This is a locked room mystery and done very well. Robin, the protagonist, is an Attorney who sometimes represents criminals. She has been asked to work for the release from death row of a man who had been incarcerated there for thirty years for murder. After she succeeds, she, her investigator and the ex-detainee are invited to Black Oaks, an exact replica of a British home that was considered to be haunted. It is also owned by the man who prosecuted her detainee. He has also known the man was not guilty but could not testify because of Attorney - Client privilege. There, their host was found murdered in an elevator that was stopped between floors. Reading about the investigation was fascinating. It is not fast paced but is gripping. Thanks to Net Galley and Minotaur for an ARC for an honest review.

I love the Robin Lockwood series. This was an interesting “locked room” murder mystery, with spooky mansion, curses, werewolves, and more. Interesting characters and twists and turns. Highly recommend.

I had a hard time finishing this book and an even harder time writing this review. While not terrible, it's hardly the intriguing and captivating mystery the synopsis hinted at.

I never did figure out where the thriller and mystery classification came from. As for Gothic overtones, that would be the mansion itself. It most definitely is not a Gothic mystery.

Discovering that it is the 6th book in the Robin Lockwood series, I expected some background references, but the slightly altered versions of Nancy Grace's Hailey Dean and her friend Fincher Garland was a major distraction. Especially when the "My fiancé was murdered in front of me" comment or "the memories of my murdered fiancé are too great" were mentioned throughout the book.

The author attempted to weave several stories into the main plot but in reality they're nothing but page filler. The real identity of the unexpected guest was a no brainer. The locked room murder was almost as simplistic. The 10 year old disappearance of an employee at Black Oaks was also a no brainer that the author chose to just whitewash and be done with it.
As for the unofficial reopening of a murder to free a wrongly convicted man, well, it gave a secondary character something to do.

If this book is an example of the author's writing, I'll think I'll pass on any future offerings of his.

Thank you to NetGalley, Phillip Margolin and St. Martins Press for an advanced e-copy of this book. I really love the Robin Lockwood series. She is a strong and interesting protagonist. This book was fast-paced and I enjoyed it. Although it did feel like three short stories and I wish parts of the story had been fleshed out a bit more. I definitely recommend reading Murder at Black Oaks.

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book. Robin is asked to visit the home of a man who used to be a lawyer. He was in an accident years ago that left him injured. He needs Robin's assistance in helping free a man on death row. When there is a double murder. Robin wants to figure out what happened. This book captured my attention from the start.

Retired prosecuting attorney Francis Hardy wants to right a wrong from thirty years ago by finding a way to free a man wrongly accused of murdering his girlfriend. He hires Robin Lockwood to get that conviction overturned. Francis Hardy lives in a reconstructed English manor house with a werewolf theme and it is spooky as can be. During one stormy night, the cast of characters are confined to this home when Francis is murdered. This novel is a locked room mystery and the characters include not only Robin and her investigator, but Francis’ daughter, the research assistant, a has-been actor, the now freed convict, an escaped madman and more. What I thought would be a fun who done it, I found it to be just okay. No real surprises and it was slow at times and formulaic throughout. Sixth in the Robin Lockwood series, but I’ll pass.

I chose this book for many reasons: I like the author and his writing, and I was intrigued by his dedication/description that his inspiration was the classical genre from Christie, Dickinson Carr, and others. Ultimately this is two stories, a sly nod to the aforementioned classic authors and a rather unsatisfying modern detective story.
I wanted to throw this book against the wall when I finished it. The locked room story was obvious, overwrought with A lot of red herrings , the legal counterpoint required deus ex machina for the solution.
However, and this why my rating is a 4, I waited several weeks before writing this review because I could not stop thinking about it. Does Margolin accomplish his dedication to provide a tribute to his literary mystery heroes? Yes. Is it a fun and fast read? Yes. Was I annoyed that an otherwise smart series protagonist was clueless in this novel? Definitely Yes! Have I recommended the book to my mystery reading friends? Yes, again because it is satisfyingly fun. If you have no other expectations than to be entertained then you will enjoy Murder at Black Oaks.

This is a murder mystery set in and around Portland with some of the history of past trials becoming relevant again. The characters are very interesting and it keeps you guessing until the very end! Highly recommend!

Thank you to St. Martins Press and NetGalley for providing me with a digital galley in exchange for an honest review. I am a Philip Margolin fan and have read the other books in the Robin Lockwood series. In this book, we first meet prosecutor Frank Melville when he is successfully prosecuting a man for murder. Unfortunately, he later learns he has sent a man to death row for a crime he was innocent of, and is haunted by this discovery. Finally, years later, when he can finally legally try to right the wrong, he engages the services of lawyer Robin Lockwood to fight to free the man. When that case concludes, he contracts for her services in yet another matter. Disabled now, he is passionate about freeing innocent people who have been wrongly convicted. He invites Robin and her investigator to his home, an eerie replica of a manor in England that is believed to be haunted by a curse. When an innocent dinner goes awry, and we learn there is a murderer on the loose from a mental hospital nearby, the deaths mysteriously start to pile up inside the home. Robin and her investigator are left to figure out what is happening and quickly, before any other lives are lost. Whether they can do it, and what their game plan is, makes for an engaging story. I am normally not into gothic stories of this type, but I found it a quick read that should hold the interest of fans of the legal thriller genre.

I didn’t realize this was part of a series when I requested it from NetGalley. I had no problem following the plot, though I would have preferred the characters to be fleshed out more. I didn’t feel they had much depth, including the MC, but perhaps that’s because I missed the previous novels.

The potential was great—an old, rambling mansion tucked in a secluded location, a rumored curse, murder, and an assortment of suspects. I wish the author had stuck with that premise, but the plot split in so many directions, the weave between the various threads rather weak.

Attorney Robin Lockwood helps free a man who was unjustly sent to death row for murder. The trial lawyer responsible for that conviction ends up murdered (in said secluded mansion, which he owns). Things get a little crazy after that.

There’s an escapee from a mental hospital, and a separate unsolved murder that occurred over a decade in the past. This murder moves front and center and becomes the primary focus. I missed the secluded mansion and legend attached to it. Almost like a bait and switch.

In addition, there is a particular thread (no spoilers) that didn't really serve a purpose. I kept waiting for the author to return to it in some form but it never happened.

The first murder does get readdressed, but by then I was frustrated that the story didn’t jive with the blurb. I wanted something gothic, or an And Then There Were None type tale. I’m sorry to say this story wasn’t for me, but I expect many mystery lovers and fans of the series will find it an entertaining read.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’ Press and Minotaur Books for my AR

I had a hard time finishing this book. I say book but it's really two or three short stories woven together to make a short novel.. This creates somewhat of a mess. The whole gothic atmosphere was silly and useless. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. Sorry.

Defense Attorney Robin Lockwood makes her sixth outing in Phillip Margolin’s Murder at Black Oaks, an atmospheric murder mystery that starts with the trial of a man wrongly convicted of murder. Thirty years later, the prosecutor who got the conviction, knowing an innocent man was put behind bars, hires Robin Lockwood to set him free. But of course, it doesn’t end there, because no sooner has Robin achieved this goal than her employer, retired District Attorney Francis Hardy, gets himself murdered under baffling circumstances.
I wanted to like Murder at Black Oaks. I really did. A creepy mansion cut off from civilization during a storm. A curse and talk of werewolves. A baffling murder. But I just could not get into the book the way I wanted. The plot felt choppy and disjointed, jumping from one unrelated thread to another, none of which came together at the end. It felt like three separate stories had been jammed into one novel.
The central mystery, the murder of retired DA Francis Hardy, incorporated so many cliches that it started to feel like I was trapped in a game of Clue. The locked room murder at the heart of this mystery was easily explained within a few pages and wasn’t really a locked room at all. The escaped convict pretending to be a detective has been done so many times already that I found its presence in this novel jarring. I know that Phillip Margolin was writing a tribute to classic mysteries like Agatha Christie, but I felt it could have done better and came across more like repeating what has gone before that homage.

Another really good Robin Lockwood story by Margolin. A little more complicated than pthers , with a few more side stories but still riveting and page turning. Jose Alvarez has been sitting on death row for decades for a crime he insists he did not commit. When Robin is hired by the former prosecutor who convicted him to now prove he is actually innocent, things get real complicated, real fast. Her visit to the secluded mansion where her client lives opens the door to an entire group of nefarious characters and perilous plotting.
Good read.

If you are a fan of Agatha Christie novels, this one is for you.
Somewhat predictable storyline with a nice gentle thriller theme.

Attorney Robin Lockwood is a great female protagonist – smart, sexy and an ex-MMA fighter. If you need a defense attorney, hopefully you have Robin on your speed dial. (This book is number 6 in the series, and I plan to go back and read all of the earlier books.) I receive an ARC from NetGalley, and the opinions expressed are my own.

What a disappointment! It was a silly premise… a Helter skeleter mish mash … it was farcical. I know the author states at the beginning he is going to include details of classic mysteries but this book was contrived and not worth reading. A poor example of any of the genres he was trying to emulate. A waste of the reader’s time.

Margolin continues his Robin Lockwood series. This time he adds a bit of Gothic to the mix since much of the story takes place in a mansion similar to the castles of the werewolves and Dracula. Lockwood is asked to prove the innocence of a man sentenced to life in prison. The one promoting this is the lawyer who sent the man to prison. He now knows that lies were told but he unable to reveal the truth, until the real murderer died. Robin proves the innocence of the sentenced man but not before more people die in the cursed castle. There are a cast of characters in this novel. The wronged man, the daughter of the lawyer, the butler and the kitchen maiden etc. The setting in the mountains of Oregon add to the feeling of darkness in the book. There are not many happy endings in the story--maybe just one Special thanks to NetGalley for the arc.

Murder at Black Oaks is the 6th installment in the Robin Lockwood series. Here, Robin is hired by a retired attorney to help exonerate a convicted killer on death row, and she becomes trapped on an old estate tucked away on an Oregon mountaintop. There’s several guests at the manor, and suddenly one of them is found murdered. The book is an homage to Agatha Christie and other similar classic writers, with a locked room mystery, no shortage of suspects, all set amid a spooky and possibly haunted house. It’s campy fun, with lots of misdirection and eccentric characters and an easy, light read. No new ground broken here, but entertaining nonetheless. I received an arc of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I normally like the Robin Lockwood series, but this one seemed a little disjointed. I don't necessarily expect a realistic plot, but this one had some small points that were a bit too much. This installment has criminal defense attorney and former fighter Robin solving several cases of people wrongly convicted of murder. They were tied together loosely, but not cohesively. The main story had a wealthy former prosecutor who convicted a college student of murder. Not too many years after the conviction, another man confessed the crime to him, but client-attorney confidentiality kept him from reporting that the wrong man was in prison.

Other murders were pretty easy to solve by anyone who has read more than a couple of mysteries. Basically, following the money is a good path.

Things that didn't make sense at all is Robin moving a murdered body and tracking down a suspect through an area, destroying evidence, rather than having the police do it. Oh, and an undocumented man who was convicted of murder but somehow was languishing in prison for years with no talk of deportation.

I wanted to like it more than I did. It felt like a "hey, my book is due. I better get something out" than a book written from the heart.