RESURRECTION WALK (audiobook) (Book 7 of the Lincoln Lawyer series) by Michael Connelly

 

Published in November of 2023 by Little, Brown and Company.
Read by Peter Giles, Titus Welliver, and Christine Lakin.
Duration: 10 hours, 30 minutes.
Unabridged.

Synopsis:

The seventh book in the Lincoln Lawyer series is also a crossover with the more prolific Harry Bosch series. 

Mickey Haller is known as "the Lincoln Lawyer" because, at one point, he didn't actually have an office and he used the backseat of a Lincoln automobile as his office while he rode through LA's infamous traffic. Haller is a high profile defense attorney known for his antics and willingness to make any argument for the defense. But, lately, Haller has started his own version of the Innocence Project - he is looking for cases of truly innocent people who were mistakenly convicted.

Harry Bosch is Haller's older half brother (by 15 years.) Bosch is a retired LAPD detective and has always looked at defense attorneys as slimy characters that use tricks to get the guilty people that he arrested set free. 

Despite that mindset, Bosch has always hated sloppy police work - it convicts the wrong people and leaves the guilty free to continue on with their crimes. It's that angle that draws Bosch in and lets him work as an investigator for the most outrageous defense attorney in Los Angeles.

The author, Michael Connelly

Bosch sorts through the big pile of letters that arrive in Haller's office and finds the ones that seem plausible to him and he does what he does best - he investigates.

When he comes across a case of a woman who is convicted of killing her ex-husband (a sheriff deputy) in her front yard after an argument, Bosch is convinced that there's more to the case than the files suggest.

Once he starts digging, Bosch and Haller get sucked into a complicated mess...

My review:

This is a satisfying, complicated mystery coupled with a lot of dramatic courtroom scenes. 

This book would probably not be a great place to jump in as a first novel in either series. If you watch the Lincoln Lawyer series on Netflix or the Harry Bosch series on Amazon/FreeVee, be aware that there is significant divergence between the shows and the books.

The audiobook goes back and forth between the three readers that typically read the audiobooks nowadays. If the action features a certain character in a chapter, that reader reads the chapter. The other actors read for their character if there is dialogue. It is a nice touch and it works.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: RESURRECTION WALK (audiobook) (Book 7 of the Lincoln Lawyer series) by Michael Connelly.

THE LAW of INNOCENCE (audiobook)(Mickey Haller #6) by Michael Connelly

Published in November of 2020 by Little, Brown and Company.

Read by Peter Giles.
Duration: 12 hours, 27 minutes.
Unabridged.

I am an enthusiastic fan of Michael Connelly's books, but to me the Mickey Haller/Lincoln Lawyer series has always been a lesser series than the related Harry Bosch series. It is never bad - just not quite as good.

I am pleased to say that The Law of Innocence is much better than the typical offering in this series. In fact, this is one of the best fiction audiobooks I have listened to in quite a while.

Mickey Haller is known to many as The Lincoln Lawyer. He has that nickname because he works out of the back of his car (always a Lincoln) rather than have an actual office in traffic-plagued Los Angeles. He has wi-fi, a printer and access to his digital files. His office manager works from her home office and sort of acts as his "air traffic controller" by setting up his schedule and arranging places to meet his next appointment. His drivers are typically former clients, some of whom are driving to work off their attorney's fees. 

The book begins with Mickey Haller hosting a party at a downtown bar celebrating a not guilty verdict. Haller is not partaking because he has been clean and sober for the past several years. This is an important point as he drives home and gets pulled over. Certain that this is a bad stop for drunk driving, Haller is surprised to see that he has a missing license plate. He is even more surprised to see a liquid dripping from the back of his car. The officer is sure it is blood, cuffs Haller and opens the trunk to find the body of a former client.

Haller is, of course, innocent. Haller goes from being a defense attorney to being the defendant in a murder trial and the case against him is very strong...

Note: The Law of Innocence has a lot of ties to the fourth novel in the series, The Fifth Witness. 

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE LAW of INNOCENCE (audiobook)(Mickey Haller #6) by Michael Connelly.

TWO KINDS of TRUTH (Harry Bosch #20) (audiobook) by Michael Connelly

Published by Hachette Audio in 2017
Read by Titus Welliver
Duration: 9 hours, 54 minutes
Unabridged

Harry Bosch returns in his twentieth outing, more or less (there are a lot of overlapping characters from other series in Michael Connelly's newer books). Although Bosch is primarily known as an LAPD detective, he is now retired and is working as a volunteer detective for the comparatively tiny San Fernando Police Department. He clears cold cases because San Fernando hasn't had an actual murder in years.

But, the opioid crisis has hit San Fernando and the owners of a family-owned pharmacy in one of San Fernando's main shopping districts are killed in an obvious hit by two gunmen. Bosch and the three full-time detectives swing into action.

Bosch is also distracted by a case from the 1980's that has come back to haunt him. A death row inmate has new evidence that exonerates him and he is blaming Harry Bosch for framing him in the first place and Bosch may be held financially responsible. Bosch, with the help of his half-brother Mickey Haller (The Lincoln Lawyer) has to act to save his good name, his life savings and to keep a murderer on death row.

Two Kinds of Truth is read by Titus Welliver, the actor that plays Harry Bosch in the Amazon streaming TV show Bosch. The Harry Bosch series has had a series of strong audiobook readers and Welliver continues that streak.

Longtime readers of the Harry Bosch series will be pleased to know that Jerry Edgar, an old partner of Harry's comes back to the series and plays a serious role.

This is the fourth Harry Bosch novel in a row that I thought would provide a good exit for the character. However, I am glad that Michael Connelly keeps on finding new things for Harry to do. In this book there were several new situations and new combinations of characters that kept it interesting.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly. 

THE BRASS VERDICT (Lincoln Lawyer/Mickey Haller #2) (audiobook) by Michael Connelly

When Harry Met Mickey

Published by Hachette Audio in 2008.
Read by Peter Giles
Duration: 11 hours, 54 minutes
Unabridged

At the end of The Lincoln Lawyer, Mickey Haller was gutshot, a horrific injury and one that is difficult to survive, let alone recover from.  At the beginning of the second book in the series, Mickey Haller is not practicing law. Due to his injury, Haller has developed an addiction to pain killers and has been in rehab getting clean. As he descended into addiction he has driven his ex-wife farther away and made that relationship even more difficult.

Despite the drugs, Haller was able to recognize that he was in no position to practice law. Then, one day out of the blue he gets a phone call from the chief judge on Los Angeles. A fellow defense attorney named Jerry Vincent has been murdered and Mickey Haller is supposed to take on all of his cases. Haller and the Vincent used to cover for one another on occasion and they listed one another as the attorney who would cover for them in case of emergency in all of their contracts with their clients.

So, Mickey Haller goes from an attorney with no cases to an attorney with multiple cases, including the biggest case in Los Angeles. Haller has inherited the case of Walter Elliott, a Hollywood producer accused of shooting his wife and her lover multiple times after he found them naked together in their oceanview home.

As Mickey starts to get up to speed with his cases he meets the detective assigned to solve the murder of  Vincent - it is none other than Harry Bosch, the main character in Michael Connelly's other series.

Bosch and Haller clash several times, each ones gets the best of the other only to be bested the next time they butt heads.

Haller soon discovers that some vital information was stolen from Vincent when he was murdered and he puts his whole defense team to work trying to figure out what could be missing and if it was the reason Vincent was killed.

As the date for Walter Elliott's trial looms Haller learns that his client may be hiding much more than he thought and he may even have some answers for the questions swirling around the murder of Jerry Vincent. Haller finds that he must walk a tightrope between helping the police and protecting his clients and not getting killed himself...

Some might claim that this book dragged. Instead of dragging, I would say that the reader gets to see Haller deal with multiple new cases and figure out how some of them might just tie together and give him some sort of clue as to what is really going on. 

I like Peter Giles as the voice of Mickey Haller. As I noted in another audiobook review, Giles captures that smooth courtroom delivery perfectly. His readings as Harry Bosch were so-so, but that is to be expected - they are very different characters.   

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

You can find this book on Amazon here: The Brass Verdict: A Novel

THE GODS of GUILT (Lincoln Lawyer #5) (audiobook) by Michael Connelly

Published in December of 2013 by Hachette Audio.
Unabridged
Read by Peter Giles
Duration: 11 hours, 49 minutes.

For me, Michael Connelly's "Lincoln Lawyer" has always been second best to his mainstay Harry Bosch series. Now, that is no insult because I am a huge fan of Michael Connelly and his second best is better than most author's best effort. This book was quite entertaining throughout and an enjoyable listen.

The Gods of Guilt begins with Los Angeles criminal attorney Mickey Haller wondering how he is going to make payroll for his struggling little law firm. He can't get any leaner than he is - he has no permanent office (he works out of his Lincoln Town Car, thus the term "Lincoln Lawyer"), he trades legal work for office space if he actually has to use a physical office and his driver is working off a legal bill by driving.   When he gets a call to defend a murder suspect who has the cash to mount a proper defense,  Mickey jumps at it. The accused is a cyber-pimp who arranges "dates" for his prostitutes via websites. He is accused of killing one of his prostitutes. 

A Lincoln Town Car. Photo by Bull-Doser.

But, Mickey is disturbed to find out that the victim is a former client that he mistakenly believed has stopped being a prostitute and had moved to Hawaii. And, the more he digs the more he is convinced that his client is truly innocent and that the his former client was involved in more things than he had ever imagined when he represented her all of those years ago and the repercussions of those activities came back to her and not only killed her but threaten anyone associated with her. As Mickey and his team begin to learn what was really going on they also risk becoming targets...

Narrator Peter Giles is a good fit for this audiobook. His smooth delivery matches the smooth delivery of Mickey Haller in court and Giles' narration works best while describing the court room drama aspect of the story.

Notes: The term "Gods of Guilt" refers to the jury in a box, 12 "gods" who sit in judgment. Personally, I think it is a bit melodramatic and clunky and the phrase is used way too many times in the story.

Fans of Harry Bosch will be pleased to note that Harry makes a short but very important appearance in this book.

The audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: The Gods of Guilt

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

The Fifth Witness (Mickey Haller #4) by Michael Connelly

Middle of the Road Addition to the Series

Published by Vision (Hatchette Book Group) in 2011

While I am a devoted and enthusiastic fan of Connelly's Harry Bosch series, I am merely a fan of the Mickey Haller Lincoln Lawyer series. On the whole, it just lacks the same brooding intensity of the Bosch series - that sense that the world is not right and Harry Bosch is on the case to sort out at least one little part of it.

In The Fifth Witness, hot shot defense lawyer Mickey Haller has fallen on rough times during a recession and he is forced to take foreclosure defense cases to keep his practice healthy. Fortunately for Haller, the Los Angeles area has plenty of foreclosures and not all of them were done "by the book" so there is a way for a talented lawyer to earn a living.

Michael Connelly

When one of Haller's foreclosure clients is accused of killing the bank officer who has been in charge of foreclosing on her home. She loudly insists that she is innocent and as Haller starts to mount a defense the evidence shows that there may well be larger issues at work here...

I was torn with this book. The book just did not have the oomph factor that the first Haller book did. It sort of cruised along, sometimes with a little jolt to perk things up. There are a couple of nice twists at the end were a surprise, but not enough to make it more than a 3 star out of 5 stars book.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Fifth Witness.

Reviewed on September 8, 2012.

The Reversal (Harry Bosch #16 and Mickey Haller #4 ) by Michael Connelly

Not the best Harry Bosch (or Mickey Haller) book but solid enough

Published in 2010 by Little, Brown and Company
389 pages

Bosch and Haller are half brothers, as has already come out if you follow the series. Bosch has become a bit more domesticated, now that he is a full time dad and has a niece and a brother and an ex-sister-in-law and I am not sure if I like it. I like the brooding intensity of the earlier installments of the  Bosch series.

Not that The Reversal does not have its creepy moments, its dramatic moments and action. It has all of that, but it just didn't feel like a Bosch book - and that was all because of the inclusion of Haller and the fact that it was a hybrid book.

In The Reversal defense attorney Mickey Haller has been asked to step in as a special prosecutor in a 24 year old case involving a child murder. The case was resolved 24 years ago but a DNA test has cast doubt on the verdict and a court has ordered the conviction to be reversed. The prosecutor has chosen Haller to re-try the case and Haller has picked his ex-wife to help and Bosch to be his investigator.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Reversal by Michael Connelly.

Reviewed on January 1, 2012.

The Lincoln Lawyer (Mickey Haller #1) by Michael Connelly

A Review of the Audiobook

Published in 2005 by Hachette Audio
Duration: 11 hours, 37 minutes
Read by Adam Grupper
Unabridged

In The Lincoln Lawyer Michael Connelly leaves Harry Bosch behind for a while to introduce a new character - defense attorney Mickey Haller. Haller plays all of the angles all of the time. He knows all of the ins and outs of the L.A. court system and knows all of the ways to create revenue for his practice - he needs every penny because he has two ex-wives and a child to support. Haller saves money by using his car, a roomy Lincoln, as his office. His driver is a client who is working off what he owes to Haller.

Haller is asked to defend a very rich Beverly Hills playboy in an attempted rape/murder case and soon Haller's world starts to become even more complicated. Ethical considerations, murder, love of family and the desire for justice for a man unfairly imprisoned all get tangled together.

Michael Connelly

The audiobook is wonderfully read by veteran narrator Adam Grupper. He does a fantastic job of giving each character a distinctive voice and the conversations flow as easily as if they were read by a team of actors.

The book is a solid legal thriller - I stayed interested until the end and looked forwards to hearing more during my morning and evening commutes.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly.

Reviewed on May 18, 2010.