A chance meeting at a baseball game and a need to fulfill a desire to write
a legal thriller prompted Michael Connelly to write The Lincoln Lawyer and
to produce one of his finest pieces of work to date.
They're called Lincoln Lawyers: the bottom of the legal food chain, the criminal
defence attorneys who operate out of the back of a Lincoln Town Car, taking
whatever cases the system throws in their path. Mickey Haller has been in
the business a long time, and he knows just how to work it. When a Beverly
Hills rich boy is arrested for brutally beating a woman, Haller has his first
high-paying client in years. The evidence mounts on the defence's side, and
Haller might even be in the rare position of defending a client who is actually
innocent. But when his case starts to fall apart and neither the suspect nor
the victim are quite who they seem, Haller quickly discovers that when you
swim with the sharks, it's easy to wind up as prey.
Everything about this novel works. The dialogue whips the story onwards in
a whirl of anticipation. The characters are real; slimy, loveable, dangerous
and naive in equal measure according to their roles to be closely acquainted
to anybody, while the settings are so vividly drawn that to anybody unfamiliar
with Los Angeles, the court buildings, roads and bars in which The Lincoln
Lawyer is set leap from the page to leave the reader with an astonishing and
bewildering sense of deja vu.
Where Grisham plods Connelly fairly sprints, aided no doubt by his time served
as a legal reporter for the LA Times and by the doubtless countless hours
spent in courtrooms, researching for this book alone
That Harry Bosch is an exquisite creation of Crime fiction is unquestionable.
Look at the awards the cop has won for the author. That Mickey Haller – who
need not contend with the day-to-day drudgery of police work and all that
it entails to meet his ends – is a masterpiece of lightening-quick fiction
is undeniable.
A novel to be read in a flurry of anticipation, The Lincoln Lawyer is surely
only a first outing for the unconventional lawyer who works from the back
of his car and a freeway-fast return of Michael Connelly: The Legal Thriller
Writer should be demanded from on high, as loudly as humanly possible.
Chris High’s interview with Michael Connelly can be read here
www.michaelconnelly.com
www.orionbooks.co.uk
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Formerly a Chef, publican, shop manager, supermarket shelf-filler,
library employee and deliverer of lambs, Chris High now dedicates
most of his time to writing and journalism. He has successfully collaborated
with singer Chris de Burgh on a collection of song based short stories
available from his Website,
and is currently in the process of completing his first Crime novel.
Chris lives on Merseyside, England, with his cat Tigger and his dog,
Duke. |
