The Fifth Witness (A Lincoln Lawyer Novel) [Hardcover]

Michael Connelly (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 5, 2011 | Series: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel

Mickey Haller has fallen on tough times. He expands his business into foreclosure defense, only to see one of his clients accused of killing the banker she blames for trying to take away her home.

Mickey puts his team into high gear to exonerate Lisa Trammel, even though the evidence and his own suspicions tell him his client is guilty. Soon after he learns that the victim had black market dealings of his own, Haller is assaulted, too--and he's certain he's on the right trail.

Despite the danger and uncertainty, Haller mounts the best defense of his career in a trial where the last surprise comes after the verdict is in. Connelly proves again why he "may very well be the best novelist working in the United States today" (San Francisco Chronicle).

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Connelly's compelling fourth legal thriller featuring Mickey Haller (after Reversal) finds the maverick L.A. lawyer who uses his Lincoln town car as an office specializing in "foreclosure defense." Haller's first foreclosure client, Lisa Trammel, is fighting hard to keep her home, maybe too hard. The bank has gotten a restraining order to stop Trammel's protests, and she becomes the prime suspect when Mitchell Bondurant, a mortgage banker, is killed with a hammer in his office parking lot. A ton of evidence points to Trammel, but Haller crafts an impressive defense that includes "the fifth witness" of the title. Connelly has a sure command of the legal and procedural details of criminal court, and even manages to make the arcane, shady world of foreclosure interesting. While the prose may lack some of the poetic nuance of his early novels, the plot is worthy of a master storyteller. The film of The Lincoln Lawyer, the first Mickey Haller novel, releases in March. (Apr.)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* Crime-fiction megastar Connelly can always be counted on to try something a little different. In The Reversal (2010), his last Mickey Haller novel, starring the L.A. lawyer who prefers to work out of his Lincoln Town Car, Connelly offered a tour de force of plotting on multiple levels. Here, he narrows the focus considerably, concentrating almost exclusively on what happens inside the courtroom but bringing to the traditional give-and-take of prosecutor, defender, judge, and jury an altogether more complex commingling of personality and legal strategy than is typically on view in legal thrillers. He accomplishes this with a particularly rich first-person narration in which Haller takes us through the courtroom drama as it happens, noting his blunders and praising himself for quick-thinking improvisations. It doesn't hurt, either, that the plot is meaty: a woman whom Haller was representing in a suit against the bank attempting to foreclose on her mortgage is accused of killing the bank official in charge of foreclosures. Combining ripped-from-the-headlines information on the mortgage crisis with a cast of characters that defies stereotypes at every turn of the plot, Connelly shows once again that he will never simply ride the wave of past success. And, neither, apparently, will Mickey Haller, as he reveals a shocking change of direction in the novel's final pages.

HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Connelly's latest Mickey Haller novel will benefit from the release in March of a movie version of The Lincoln Lawyer, the first Haller novel, starring Matthew McConaughey. 750,000 first printing. --Bill Ott

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1st edition (April 5, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316069353
• ISBN-13: 978-0316069359
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.5 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (616 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #93,092 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michael Connelly 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.

After three years on the crime beat in L.A., Connelly began writing his first novel to feature LAPD Detective Hieronymus Bosch. The novel, The Black Echo, based in part on a true crime that had occurred in Los Angeles , was published in 1992 and won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel by the Mystery Writers of America. Connelly has followed that up with 18 more novels. His books have been translated into 31 languages and have won the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, Shamus, Dilys, Nero, Barry, Audie, Ridley, Maltese Falcon (Japan), .38 Caliber (France), Grand Prix (France), and Premio Bancarella (Italy) awards.

Michael lives with his family in Florida.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#39 Overall (See top 100 authors)

#4 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Police Procedurals

#5 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Police Procedurals

#9 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Thrillers

#10 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers

#11 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers

#4 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Police Procedurals

#5 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Police Procedurals

#9 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Thrillers

#10 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers

#11 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

313 of 349 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Lincoln Lawyer Novel to Date! April 5, 2011

By Michael A. Newman VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

This engaging courtroom thriller is by far Mr. Connelly's best Lincoln Lawyer tale to date! This time Mickey Haller has jumped on the foreclosure bandwagon and is servicing clients who are about to lose their house. One of those clients is Lisa Trammel who has started a protest group that against her bank that garners national attention.

When the Bank Officer servicing Lisa's loan is murdered, Lisa is the prime suspect and it is up to Mickey to defend her. Through the handling of Lisa's mortgage case against the bank, Mickey knows that there were a lot of "fishy" practices going on and that Lisa may have been set up. The courtroom drama is intense and Mr. Connelly has the reader hooked on every sentence of the narrative.

Mr. Connelly also paints a picture of LAPD law enforcement (with the exception of Harry Bosch) working with "tunnel vision," meaning that once they have a possible suspect, they ignore all leads not related to the suspect and only pursue what will make a case against that suspect. This may in part be due to the economics of doing an investigation. The prosecution in this case seems to only be interested in seeing the accused go down and to discount any other "theories" of what may have occurred, especially if those paths may point to a different individual as the perpetrator of the crime.

Mr. Connelly also gives us more insight into Mickey's supporting team, especially his investigator Cisco. Mickey seems to have evolved from the "sleezy" lawyer we had seen in the first Lincoln Lawyer novel and is now a relentless pursuer of getting to the truth. There are also some surprises with Mickey's evolving "post-married" relationship with Maggie, his ex.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book from start to finish and look forward to more Mickey stories!

95 of 104 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Great read! April 19, 2011

By M. McConnell

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This was another great Michael Connelly story. Mickey Haller was wonderful, especially in the court room scenes and his staff, family and assorted bad guys added depth to the story. The client, Lisa Trammel, was highly unlikeable but she still deserved to be defended. Very enjoyable and fast-paced.

I would like to suggest to Amazon that you separate the reviews where people are complaining about the price of Kindle books from the reviews about the actual story content of the book. The irate Kindle users skew the reviews and don't give a true picture of the popularity of the book unless you wade through all of the negative comments. You could lump them in their own category and send them to the publisher!

88 of 96 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Courtroom Thriller from the Master April 19, 2011

By Michael DENNISUK VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Ingore all the 1 star reviews! They are from disgruntled Kindle users (I don't read Amazon Reviews to find out your Kindle issues, I read them to get an idea whether or not I will like the book). Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer, has taken on a murder case in which one of his clients is accused of murdering a bank exec over a foreclosure. Mr. Connelly continues to successfully develop Haller's character. This is pure courtroom drama. It is the court case that is the story. The writing, as always, is exceptional. The character development is superb and the plotting is excellent. The greatest compliment you can pay a book is - "I couldn't put it down" and I couldn't put it down! Enjoy! GREAT READ!!