The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connolly – #AVirtualCrimeBookClub December Read

Posted on December 30, 2020 by J-LBRBSBLOGS

There is no client as scary as an innocent man.

Book blurb

Mickey Haller has spent all his professional life afraid that he wouldn’t recognize innocence if it stood right in front of him. But what he should have been on the watch for was evil.

Haller is a Lincoln Lawyer, a criminal defense attorney who operates out of the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car, traveling between the far-flung courthouses of Los Angeles to defend clients of every kind. Bikers, con artists, drunk drivers, drug dealers — they’re all on Mickey Haller’s client list. For him, the law is rarely about guilt or innocence — it’s about negotiation and manipulation. Sometimes it’s even about justice.

A Beverly Hills playboy arrested for attacking a woman he picked up in a bar chooses Haller to defend him, and Mickey has his first high-paying client in years. It is a defense attorney’s dream, what they call a franchise case. And as the evidence stacks up, Haller comes to believe this may be the easiest case of his career.

Then someone close to him is murdered and Haller discovers that his search for innocence has brought him face-to-face with evil as pure as a flame. To escape without being burned, he must deploy every tactic, feint, and instinct in his arsenal — this time to save his own life.

My thoughts

Mickey Haller is a defence lawyer who works from his car – a Lincoln town car – he is brought in by a bondsman to meet a potential client Louis Roulet he’s up on assault and attempted rape charges. Haller considers it a possible ‘gravy train’ or franchise case – a case that will warrant his highest rates, could well involve appeals (further charges) and if he does well some great recommendations to more potential clients. It looks good and Haller agrees to meet with Roulet.

A great deal of the first half of the book is setting the way in which Haller works, his life, the cases he works and starts to give a really interesting insight into the U.S. legal system. He takes the case on.

The book begins to pick up about 40-45% of the way in when Haller begins to realise that his client may not be the innocent he claimed to be. He gets his private investigator and friend to check out a number of angles in the case and another one from the past.

His private life also unfolds as we read this first in the series he has two ex wives one is a prosecutor, with whom he has a daughter, the other works as his assistant.

He is gutted when he realises how this new case is linked to the old one and he wants to do the right thing but it could compromise his legal standing. Still he decides to go ahead with the help of his friend but it gets worse when this friend, the P.I., is killed. Will this undermine his plan? Will he be accused of his murder?

Michael Connelly writes this complicated story well the second half of the book is gripping and holds your attention through Roulet’s court case and after as Haller realises his plan may backfire and put not only his own life but that of his loved ones into grave danger.

There are twists and turns, tension and a well written plot which ultimately made this a book worth reading. I didn’t like many of the characters but I don’t think that matters. Haller himself is quite intriguing but not necessarily likeable – even though his ex-wives seem to have a soft spot for him!

If you like courtroom drama and investigation from a different (non-police) point of view this may well be the book and series for you. It’s well written, as you would expect from an author of Michael Connelly’s experience, and very engaging.

It took me a little while, I’m not sure why, but once I got into this book I enjoyed it.

Book: Purchased

This was our latest book club read. For all information about the Virtual Crime Book Club visit The Virtual Crime Book Club where you will find links to our zoom meetings, how to sign up and much more.

Here’s the discussion but beware spoilers! The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly. The book club met on Monday 28th December at 8 pm GMT (UK time zone).

Voting is open to members for our Next Book Club Read: You can vote until Friday. The next meeting is Monday 25th January 2021 at 8pm (UK Timezone).

You will need to be a member of the book club to get your zoom invite so please do join HERE. We’d love to see you!

Information

Publisher : Orion (23 Dec. 2009)

Buy: Kobo | Your local bookshop | UKBookshop.org

Author: Michael Connelly was born in Philadelphia, PA on July 21, 1956. He moved to Florida with his family when he was 12 years old. Michael 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.

After graduating in 1980, Connelly worked at newspapers in Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, primarily specializing in the crime beat. In Fort Lauderdale he wrote about police and crime during the height of the murder and violence wave that rolled over South Florida during the so-called cocaine wars. 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.

Michael is the bestselling author of thirty-five novels and one work of non-fiction. With over eighty million copies of his books sold worldwide and translated into forty foreign languages, he is one of the most successful writers working today. His very first novel, The Black Echo, won the prestigious Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 1992. In 2002, Clint Eastwood directed and starred in the movie adaptation of Connelly’s 1998 novel, Blood Work. In March 2011, the movie adaptation of his #1 bestselling novel, The Lincoln Lawyer, hit theaters worldwide starring Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller. His most recent #1 New York Times bestsellers include Dark Sacred Night, Two Kinds Of Truth, The Late Show, The Wrong Side Of Goodbye, The Crossing, The Burning Room, The Gods of Guilt, and The Black Box. Michael’s crime fiction career was honored with the Diamond Dagger from the CWA in 2018.

Michael is the executive producer of Bosch, an Amazon Studios original drama series based on his bestselling character Harry Bosch, starring Titus Welliver. Bosch streams on Amazon Prime Video. He is the creator and host of the podcast Murder Book. He is also the executive producer of the documentary films, Sound Of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story and Tales of the American. He spends his time in California and Florida.

The Lincoln Lawyer was released as a feature film in March 2011. The movie stars Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller, Marisa Tomei as Maggie McPherson, and Ryan Phillippe as Louis Roulet.

Buy: Hive | DVD

Michael Connelly Website | Michael Connelly on Twitter |

Books

Harry Bosch Series:

Books in published order:
The Black Echo (1992)
The Black Ice (1993)
The Concrete Blonde (1994)
The Last Coyote (1995)
Trunk Music (1997)
Angels Flight (1999)
A Darkness More Than Night (2001)
City Of Bones (2002)
Lost Light (2003)
The Narrows (2004) (sequel to The Poet)
The Closers (2005)
Echo Park (2006)
The Overlook (2007)
Nine Dragons (2009) (also featuring Mickey Haller)
The Drop (2011)
The Black Box (2012)
The Burning Room (2014)
The Crossing (2015) (also featuring Mickey Haller)
The Wrong Side Of Goodbye (2016) (also featuring Mickey Haller)
Two Kinds Of Truth (2017) (also featuring Mickey Haller)
Dark Sacred Night (2018) (also featuring Renée Ballard)
The Night Fire (2019) (also featuring Renée Ballard)

Appearance in the following novels: The Brass Verdict (2008), The Reversal (2010), and The Law Of Innocence (2020), and a very brief part in The Fifth Witness (2011) and The Gods of Guilt (2013).

Mickey Haller Series:

Books in published order:
The Lincoln Lawyer (2005)
The Brass Verdict (2008) (also featuring Harry Bosch)
The Reversal (2010) (also featuring Harry Bosch)
The Fifth Witness (2011)
The Gods of Guilt (2013)
The Law Of Innocence (2020) (also featuring Harry Bosch)

Appearance in the following novels: Nine Dragons (2009), The Crossing (2015), The Wrong Side Of Goodbye (2016), Two Kinds Of Truth (2017), and The Night Fire (2019).

Renée Ballard Series:

Books in published order:
The Late Show (2017)
Dark Sacred Night (2018) (also featuring Harry Bosch)
The Night Fire (2019) (also featuring Harry Bosch)

Jack McEvoy Series:

Books in published order:
The Poet (1996)
The Scarecrow (2009)
Fair Warning (2020)
Small appearance in the following novels: A Darkness More Than Night (2001) and The Brass Verdict (2008).

Other Main Characters

Rachel Walling Appearances:
The Poet (1996)
The Narrows (2004) (sequel to The Poet)
Echo Park (2006)
The Overlook (2007)
The Scarecrow (2009)
Fair Warning (2020)
Small appearance in the following novels: The Reversal (2010) and The Black Box (2012), and The Burning Room (2014).