The Gods of Guilt

Starred review from October 14, 2013
Edgar-winner Connelly's fifth novel featuring Mickey Haller (aka "the Lincoln Lawyer"), the L.A. defense attorney who uses a Lincoln town car as a mobile office, opens with a brilliantly staged bit of legal maneuvering, but the real action begins in chapter three: Andre La Cosse, a high-tech pimp, is charged with murdering one of his clients, Giselle Dallinger, a prostitute who turns out to be known to Haller as Gloria Dayton, from 2005's The Lincoln Lawyer. The case is fishy, and Haller's crew goes to work: investigator Cisco Wojciechowski, case manager Lorna Taylor, associate Jennifer Aronson, and driver Earl Briggs. Haller's strategy is not to uncover the truth but to develop a credible alternative theory of the crime, and the investigation that follows is like a police procedural seen from the other side of the criminal justice world. In the climactic courtroom scene, Haller appeals directly to the members of the jury, "the gods of guilt" of the title. While readers will learn little that is new about Haller's complex backstory (mostly involving his estranged daughter), they will find plenty of drama, danger, and suspense in this gem of a legal thriller. Agent: Philip Spitzer, Philip G. Spitzer Literary.

November 15, 2013
The fifth in the best-selling Lincoln Lawyer series. A former newspaper reporter, Connelly (The Reversal, 2010, etc.) has moved into the territory dominated by former lawyers John Grisham and Scott Turow in this series of novels featuring defense attorney Mickey Haller, a hustler whose office is the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car and whose approach to the legal system prizes pragmatism over idealism. For Haller, there was a "fine line between seeking the truth and seeking a verdict in your client's favor. They weren't always the same thing." Doing a good job as a defense lawyer sometimes finds him at odds with a law-abiding society, including his estranged daughter, devastated when one of his clients freed on a technicality caused a tragic death. "I had to have faith that Hayley would eventually come to realize that the world was not black and white," explains the protagonist. "That it was gray and the gray area was where her father dwelled." Such prose belabors the obvious, and the frequent invocation of the title (in reference to juries in particular and to all others who would pass judgment on Haller) is heavy-handed. Yet the narrative momentum sustains itself, as Haller investigates a case that doesn't look like it will change his daughter's opinion of him. He's defending a cyberpimp (a sign of the times; he designs websites) accused of murdering a prostitute who not only had a close relationship with Haller, but who had recommended him to her suspected killer if he ever needed a lawyer. Pretty quickly, it becomes plain who the good guys and bad guys are (by the standards of the series), with few surprises along the way. There is also a perfunctory romance, a few issues on the table and some plot developments that suggest that this isn't the end of the series. Not much of a thriller or a mystery, but illuminating about the ways in which the law works and doesn't.

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Starred review from October 15, 2013
When we last saw Mickey Haller (The Fifth Witness, 2011), the hot-shot maverick attorney who works out of his Lincoln Town Car was fed up with defending bad guys and had decided to run for district attorney. Well, that didn't work out. Too much politics. Now Mickey's back with the bad guys, defending a high-tech pimp accused of killing one of his girls, who happens to be a former friend of Mickey's. Naturally, the case has multiple levels, involving a bent DEA agent and requiring an unholy coalition with a drug lord. As he's done throughout the Haller series, Connelly shows a remarkable ability to bring the courtroom alivenot just the details of the case at hand and the procedural machinations but also the personal drama simmering below the surface of the thrust and counterthrust of legal strategy. There is tragedy along the way to a verdict this time, and Mickey must confront his personal gods of guilt just as he does the jury in the courtroom. Connelly's Harry Bosch series has typically dug deeper into personal demons and questions of existential identity than the Haller novels, but this time the fast-talking attorney is forced to look inward, where his tricks of the trade do him little good. A gripping novel, both in the courtroom and outside of it, and a testament to the melancholy maturing of Mickey Haller. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: As always, a national media campaign will support the launch of Connelly's latest, as it climbs best-seller lists. Connelly's books have sold more than 50 million copies worldwide.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2013

Defense attorney Mickey Haller investigates the murder of a prostitute whom he thought he had saved from a life on the streets. Since Connelly's latest, The Black Box, debuted at the top of both the combined print and ebook and ebook-only New York Times best sellers lists, it's safe to say that fans will be clamoring for this title.

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