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Michael's new book, The Lincoln Lawyer, is about a cynical defense
attorney and is Michael's first legal thriller.Best-selling author Michael
Connelly, whose character-driven literary mysteries have earned him a wide
following, breaks from the gate in the over-crowded field of legal
thrillers and leaves every other contender from Grisham to Turow in the
dust with this tightly plotted, brilliantly paced, impossible-to-put-down
novel.
Criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller's father was a legendary lawyer
whose clients included gangster Mickey Cohen (in a nice twist, Cohen's
gun, given to Dad then bequeathed to his son, plays a key role in the
plot). But Dad also passed on an important piece of advice that's
especially relevant when Mickey takes the case of a wealthy Los Angeles
realtor accused of attempted murder: "The scariest client a lawyer will
ever have is an innocent client. Because if you [screw] up and he goes to
prison, it'll scar you for life."
Louis Roulet, Mickey's "franchise client" (so-called becaue he's able
and willing to pay whatever his defense costs) seems to be the one his
father warned him against, as well as being a few rungs higher on the
socio-economic ladder than the drug dealers, homeboys, and motorcycle
thugs who comprise Mickey's regular case load. But as the holes in
Roulet's story tear Mickey's theory of the case to shreds, his thoughts
turn more to Jesus Menendez, a former client convicted of a similar crime
who's now languishing in San Quentin. Connelly tellingly delineates the
code of legal ethics Mickey lives by: "It didn't matter...whether the
defendant 'did it' or not. What mattered was the evidence against him--the
proof--and if and how it could be neutralized. My job was to bury the
proof, to color the proof a shade of gray. Gray was the color of
reasonable doubt." But by the time his client goes to trial, Mickey's
feeling a few very reasonable doubts of his own.
While Mickey's courtroom pyrotechnics dazzle, his behind-the-scenes
machinations and manipulations are even more incendiary in this taut,
gripping novel, which showcases all of Connelly's literary gifts. There's
not an excess sentence or padded paragraph in it--what there is, happily,
is a character who, like Harry Bosch, deserves a franchise series of his
own.
Book review
Abraham Lincoln is revered by
lawyers everywhere for his courtroom skills and practical wisdom. The
Lincoln Michael Connelly refers is not Abraham, but rather the
automobile.
Mickey Haller, son of an original Los Angeles superstar lawyers, owns
several. At times the limousine business seems preferable to his own. But
finally he gets, to his eternal regret the "franchise case", the kind of
case that not only pays the bills but causes other clients to want his
services.
A young rich real estate broker is charged in the attempted murder of a
hooker. His insistence in his innocence causes Haller to realize he may
have what he has always dreaded, the actually innocent client. But he
finds his defense efforts in disarray as the case sours, and he himself
becomes a murder suspect.
Non-lawyers usually do not write good legal thrillers. Michael
Connelly, a former reporter and America's best mystery writer, is the
exception that proves the rule. He has a great ear for the courtroom and a
sense of the professional and economic dilemmas trial lawyers face.
I will say this, however, in real life no matter how secret the client
confidence, lawyers are ethically able to access the expertise necessary
to know how to respond to any dilemma in an ethically sound way. The real
Mickey Haller would have picked up the phone to the Bar's hotline for an
ethics opinion. That simple act would have destroyed a helluva tale.
I hope we will see more of Haller. He has his demons but he is not as
dark a protagonist as Harry Bosch. The reality is, in his first legal
thriller, Connelly has produced a book every bit as good as John Grisham's
A Time To Kill. That is saying a lot.
Author
introduction
Michael Connelly decided to become a
writer after discovering the books of Raymond Chandler while attending the
University of Florida. Once he decided on this direction he chose a major
in journalism and a minor in creative writing - a curriculum in which one
of his teachers was novelist Harry Crews.
A In 1986, he and two other reporters spent several months interviewing
survivors of a major airline crash. They wrote a magazine story on the
crash and the survivors which was later short-listed for the Pulitzer
Prize for feature writing. The magazine story also moved Connelly into the
upper levels of journalism, landing him a job as a crime reporter for the
Los Angeles Times, one of the largest papers in the country, and bringing
him to the city of which his literary hero, Chandler, had
written.
After three years on the crime beat in L.A., Connelly began
writing his first novel to feature LAPD Detective Hieronymus Bosch. The
novel, The Black Echo, based in part on a true crime that had occurred in
Los Angeles, was published in 1992 and won the Edgar Award for Best First
Novel by the Mystery Writers of America.
Connelly's 15th book, the recent The Closers, was released in May 2005,
and was Michael's first # 1 New York Times bestseller. In The Closers,
Harry returns to the LAPD and Michael returns to writing in third person.
Michael's new book, The Lincoln Lawyer, was released in October 2005.
It is about a cynical defense attorney and is Michael's first legal
thriller.
Michael Connelly's books have been translated in 31 languages and have
won the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, Dilys, Nero, Barry, Audie, Ridley,
Maltese Falcon (Japan), .38 Caliber (France), Grand Prix (France), and
Premio Bancarella (Italy) awards.
Michael was the President of the Mystery Writers of America
organization in 2003 and 2004. In addition to his literary work, Michael
was one of the creators, writers, and consulting producers of Level 9, a
TV show about a task force fighting cyber crime, that ran on UPN in the
Fall of 2000.
Michael lives with his family in Florida. |
