Supreme Justice

I’ll admit, I approached *Supreme Justice* with skepticism—legal thrillers can often feel like *Law & Order* fanfic with extra briefs. But Margolin’s novel hooked me in the first 20 minutes, not with a body (though there is one, spectacularly staged), but with a *conversation*. A quiet, chilling exchange between a judge and a clerk about the ‘right kind of justice’ that made my skin prickle. That’s the book’s superpower: it’s less about solving a crime than about dissecting how power corrupts the very institutions meant to curb it. Jonathan Davis’s narration is a perfect match for the material. His voice has this world-weary gravitas, like a defense attorney who’s seen one too many deals made in the judge’s chambers. He handles the female characters with surprising nuance—no shrill caricatures here—especially Sarah, the clerk whose idealism is the story’s emotional core. My only gripe? The mid-book lull where Margolin gets *too* enamored with procedural minutiae (do we really need three scenes of senators debating filibuster rules?). And while the ending is satisfyingly twisty, one reveal relies on a character acting *just* stupid enough to serve the plot. Still, the audiobook’s production is impeccable—no volume spikes, no awkward pauses—letting Davis’s performance carry the weight. If you love your thrillers smart, cynical, and steeped in real-world stakes (with a side of ‘how is this legal?’), this is your next listen.