Blurb:

This be-careful-what-you-wish-for Thriller Short from bestselling author Phillip Margolin tells what happens when a cop meets the man of her dreams, who lives in the house of her dreams. Monica Esteban grew up poor, on occasion helping her single mother clean houses. That’s when she first saw the big house on Pine Terrace. Her mother called her princess and told her that one day she would marry a rich prince and live in a castle. The castle she dreamed of was the big house. But that would never happen on a cop’s salary. At least that’s what she thought until she received an inconceivable dinner invitation from the most unlikely man imaginable. Dinner is everything she hoped it would be. Dan Emery is a perfect gentleman, making the next two months pass like a fairy tale…until her dream comes to an end and she finds out just how much it costs to live in the big house on Pine Terrace. 

At only 24 pages, this little thriller packs a huge punch. It is a stellar little story with as many plot twists as a full length novel.
This thriller short showcases the huge talent of Phillip Margolin. I’ve read several full length novels of his in the past and was delighted to know that he excels at the short format as well.
Highly recommended to crime fiction fans.

From Wikipedia:

Margolin was born in New York City in 1944. After receiving a B.A. in Government in 1965, from American University in Washington, D.C., he worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in Liberia until 1967.  He graduated from the New York University School of Law in 1970, and has worked for 25 years as a criminal defense attorney, an occupation of choice inspired by the Perry Mason books.He started to work in 1970 at the Oregon Court of Appeals.

He published his first story, a short story titled “The Girl in the Yellow Bikini”, in 1974, and became a full-time writer in 1996. 

Philip Margolin was married to Doreen Stamm in 1968. They had two children, Ami and Daniel. Doreen, also a defense attorney, died from cancer in January 2007.