Michael Connelly - The Lincoln Lawyer (2005)
Reviewed by Fiona Walker
No doubt about it, Connelly can write a legal thriller with the best of them. Then, we didn’t need The Lincoln Lawyer to tell us that. Anyone who’s read the Bosch series will have come across the absolute gem that is The Concrete Blonde, and will have already witnessed Connelly’s obvious talent at rendering the tensest of courtroom scenes. They will have had no real concern about his pulling off this, his 15th novel. The Lincoln Lawyer is possibly the greatest legal thriller I’ve come across, although I admit my exposure to that sub-genre isn’t exactly expansive. His writing may not be as effortlessly fluid as Grisham’s (though it is far more textured), but this is a far, far better book overall.
Mickey Haller is a Lincoln lawyer, a criminal defense attorney who operates from the back of his car. (He’s also Harry Bosch’s half-brother.) He’s been in the game for a long time – through two wives, one of whom is now his secretary – and knows exactly how the system works, exactly which cogs to grease to tip the slight advantage to his client. But then he runs up against the case of his career: Louis Ross Roulet, young, rich, and going places, is accused of brutally beating a woman. It’s something he adamantly denies, and Haller thinks he might just be telling the truth. Which is a bad thing for him. It’s the innocent ones, he knows, that you have to watch out for: for them, everything is at stake, and only one verdict is acceptable.
Gradually, the evidence starts to mount up, but as it does the case gets ever-more complicated. Things come to light which throw both suspect and victim into a different light, and there are as many surprising twists as you’d expect in a legal thriller which needs to keep the readers on their toes throughout, the outcome and truth always in doubt. For Haller, the case increasingly comes to look like it might make or break him. Literally.
Connelly really needs a huge round of applause for this. It’s one the best American crime novels I’ve read this year, and also one of the best thrillers (only Greg Iles’ Blood Memory has been better so far). It is, as I say, also possibly the best legal thriller I’ve been treated to. Connelly’s gift goes beyond simply the usual knowledge of crime and criminal/legal procedures, he actually understands them. He’s gifted, also, in that his novels are never slaves to the procedures and backgrounds, rather the procedures are a slave to the story. Here, his flair for depicting the legal world from a very human perspective, in a way that makes procedures and background insinuating rather than blanketing, is displayed more clearly than ever before.
Haller is a marvel of a character, too. As a central anchor for the book, he’s superb. There’s less of a hard edge to him than Bosch, but he’s so darn interesting and likeable that I’ve little doubt that, if Connelly had begun his career with this book, Haller could probably have carried him almost as far as Bosch has. I’d be very glad to see another book featuring him.
Aside from Haller, there are many great things about this book: Connelly’s sharp, entertaining and invigorating dialogue; the moral questions thrown up throughout on the nature of guilt and innocence and their relationship with the legal process; issues of human guilt, duties to innocence, loyalty, the obligations and ramifications of money, the necessity of dispensing with certain luxuries – like morals – when your wage is being paid.
It’s a legal thriller that is terrifically suspenseful, tense, and, yes, thrilling, but it’s also a very serious novel as well. The Lincoln Lawyer – in my mind probably the best of all his standalone novels - isn’t just for Connelly fans. This is for everyone who appreciates how good crime novels can be, and how good crime writers can be when they are at their absolute best. Buy it now, and enjoy.
Posted by Fiona Walker in Book Reviews | Permalink
Comments
I completely agree with this review. What a book! And the audiobook version is simply remarkable, perhaps the best audiobook I have ever listened to.
Posted by: Mr Breese | Dec 1, 2005 7:50:00 PM
