Insignificant Case

Charlie Webb is, by his own standards and everyone else's, a third-rate lawyer. He graduated from a third law school, and since no major firm would hire him he set up his own practice, where he scrapes by on cases for dubious associates from his youth and the occasional court appointment. Described as a leaky boat floating down the stream of life, he has led an unremarkable existence, both personally and professionally. That changes when he is appointed to defend a crackpot artist who calls himself Guido Sabatini, born Lawrence Weiss. Sabatini has been arrested again, this time for breaking into a restaurant to steal back a painting he had sold to it, because he was insulted by where it was hung. Weiss is also an accomplished card shark and burglar, and while inside he took a thumb drive from the owner's safe. Not knowing what else his client may have taken, Webb negotiates the return of the painting and "other items" in exchange for the owner dropping the charges. But the thumb drive holds material that threatens very powerful figures, who are determined to get it back. The restaurant owner, Gretchen Hall, and her driver, Yuri Makarov, are under investigation for the sex trafficking of minors, and other people nurse violent grudges against Sabatini. When a minor theft case turns into a double homicide and worse, Webb, an insignificant lawyer on an insignificant case, finds himself handling the most important and deadliest case of his life. Insignificant Case is a standalone legal thriller by Phillip Margolin, the author of Gone, But Not Forgotten and a former criminal defense lawyer in Oregon.