Book Review of "The Burning Man"

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Book Review of "The Burning Man" by Phillip Margolin

Peter Hale, the son of Richard Hale, a four-year associate at Hale, Greaves,

Strobridg, Marquand, and Bartlett, has lived his life under the shadow of his father.

Despite having a high five-figure salary and fire-engine-red Porsche, Peter was constantly

trying to overcome the expectations of his high-class lawyer of a father, who was former

president of the Oregon State Bar. Handling only small-time cases did not present Peter

with the opportunity to outshine his father, who was also a second-team All-American

football player and National Champion wrestler, but when his father had a heart attack

and could no longer handle a million dollar case in which Peter had been helping him,

Peter could not let the opportunity pass. As Richard Hale lied helpless in a hospital bed,

he demanded Peter ask for a mistrial, but it seemed only to go in one ear of Peter's and

out the other.

Peter's boldness would be costly though, as he would lose the case and lose

his father. Richard did not die, but when he heard of his son's error he could not forgive

him and couldn't bare to see him anymore.

Only a fatherly instinct would force Richard to find a meager job for his helpless

son in a small town with an old friend who was looking for someone trying to regain status

as Peter now was. Whitaker was not as exciting as Portland was to Peter, but he began to

be accustomed to the town when he began his handling small criminal cases and ran into

an old friend who graduated with him from highschool, Steve Mancini. Steve, like Peter's

father, was a football star, but at the Division II level for the Whitaker State football

team. Hale became close...