The Lincoln Lawyer. (Warner Books) ; (Perfect Paperback)

"The morning air off the Mojave in late winter is as clean and crisp as you'll ever breathe in Los Angeles County..." (more)
Key Phrases: lockdown program, discovery file, arraignment court, Raul Levin, Van Nuys, Reggie Campo (more...)

Product Details

• Perfect Paperback: 508 pages
• Publisher: Warner Books,
• ISBN-10: 0446617377
• ISBN-13: 978-0446617376
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (314 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,016,618 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

142 of 154 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exactly what you would expect from Michael Connelly., October 7, 2005

By	G. Ware Cornell Jr. "anotherlawyer" (Weston FL) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Lincoln Lawyer: A Novel (Hardcover)

Abraham Lincoln is revered by lawyers everywhere for his courtroom skills and practical wisdom. The Lincoln Michael Connelly refers is not Abraham, but rather the automobile.

Mickey Haller, son of an original Los Angeles superstar lawyer, owns several. At times the limousine business seems preferable to his own. But finally he gets, to his eternal regret the "franchise case", the kind of case that not only pays the bills but causes other clients to want his services.

A young rich real estate broker is charged in the attempted murder of a hooker. His insistence in his innocence causes Haller to realize he may have what he has always dreaded, the actually innocent client. But he finds his defense efforts in disarray as the case sours, and he himself becomes a murder suspect.

Non-lawyers usually do not write good legal thrillers. Michael Connelly, a former reporter and America's best mystery writer, is the exception that proves the rule. He has a great ear for the courtroom and a sense of the professional and economic dilemmas trial lawyers face.

I will say this, however, in real life no matter how secret the client confidence, lawyers are ethically able to access the expertise necessary to know how to respond to any dilemma in an ethically sound way. The real Mickey Haller would have picked up the phone to the Bar's hotline for an ethics opinion. That simple act would have destroyed a helluva tale.

I hope we will see more of Haller. He has his demons but he is not as dark a protagonist as Harry Bosch. The reality is, in his first legal thriller, Connelly has produced a book every bit as good as John Grisham's A Time To Kill. That is saying a lot.

69 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Vintage Michael Connelly Story, November 1, 2005

By	Tucker Andersen (Wall Street) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Lincoln Lawyer: A Novel (Hardcover)

This novel is definitely on a par with the best of the fifteen stories in Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch series; any initial disappointment that might be experienced by Bosch's fans when they discover that Connelly has at least temporarily abandoned Harry in favor of Mickey Haller, a criminal defense attorney whose seemingly guilty clients often benefit from police errors, will almost immediately be replaced by the recognition that Connelly has created another character at least as complex and interesting as Harry. Mickey's persona is almost the opposite of Harry's, for him the law is about the art of the possible, his clients are often individuals who are down on their luck and on the wrong side of the law. Harry concentrates on identifying the guilty in order to provide justice for the victims and their families; Mickey is afraid that some day he will be hired to defend a client whose innocence he will be incapable of recognizing and thus he will simply pursue the "best deal" as opposed to throwing all his effort into gaining a "not guilty" verdict.

The story opens with Mickey receiving a telephone call from Fernando Valenzuela (no, not the pitcher, but the bail bondsman) in his office while on his way to a court hearing for Harold Casey, a member of the Road Saints motorcycle gang who is awaiting trial on multiple drug and weapons charges. (The Lincoln Town Car which is his office is an integral element both in his life and also eventually becomes an important detail in the particular case which is at the center of this story.) Valenzuela alerts Mickey to the possibilty of a potential "franchise case", a big money case involving a high profile client who has been booked for aggravated assualt, gross bodily injury, and attempted rape and who is interested in having Mickey represent him. As Mickey investigates the case, he quickly decides that his defense of Louis Roulet, a Beverly Hills real estate salesman, will be one of the easiest cases of his career and in fact it may never even get to trial and thus deprive him of both the big payday and the publicity which he had hoped to receive. Several unexpected twists quickly occur, and when one of Mickey's good friends is murdered he realizes that instead of worrying about failing to recognize innocence when it confronts him, for the first time in his career he may instead be in mortal danger from the pure evil which is apparently behind the attack for which his client is on trial. All this is foreshadowed wonderfully very early in the book by the following brief injection of Mickey's mental commentary (the story is written entirely in the first person);

"Much of society thought of me as the devil but they were wrong. I was a greasy angel. I was the true road saint. I was needed and wanted. By both sides. I was the oil in the machine. I allowed the gears to crank and turn. I helped keep the engine of the system running.

But all of that would change with the Roulet case. For me. For him. And certainly for Jesus Menendez."

And during the rest of the story, as Mickey defends Roulet and we gradually discover who Jesus Menendez is and his relevance to this case, we watch the juxtaposition of guilt and innocence and the clash of good and evil as the assumptions at the heart of Mickey's existence are threatened. As the title of Part Two so deftly summarizes , Mickey has entered " a world without truth."

We also are gradually introduced to the important people in Mickey's life - his dead father (a lengendary defense attorney), his two ex-wives (both with central roles in this story) and the young daughter who he has neglected due to the press of his caseload. As the book proceeds, Connelly's meticulous research provides the reader with the same type of interesting detail regarding the legal system which the Bosch series provided regarding police procedures. (And as a bonus, Connelly's knowledge of detective work makes that aspect of this story very realistic.) Furthermore, the explicit and implicit observations about human nature and the human condition which are embedded throughout THE LINCOLN LAWYER added immensely to my enjoyment of the story. Several of Mickey's small time clients not only prove essential to the Roulet case as it unfolds but are intesting in their own right.

So this book is highly recommended, both for Michael Connelly fans and as an introduction to his work for new readers. Whether Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller eventually meet or the two series remain on totally independent tracks, It appears that the author has created interesting enough characters to form the basis for many future bestsellers. For the past several years my favorite legal procedurals are the series created by John Lescroart involving lawyer Dismas Hardy and detective Abraham Glitsky. These novels successfully combine background case development and courtroom drama with truly interesting characters (Abe, Diz and their associates, friends and families) whose lives are an integral element in the stories. This book is on a par with the best stories in that series, and should be very enjoyable for fans of both Connelly and Lescroart and in fact for all readers of legal thrillers.

Tucker Andersen

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best yet from Michael Connelly, October 4, 2005

By	armchairinterviews.com (Minnesota) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Lincoln Lawyer: A Novel (Hardcover)

I have long been a fan of Michael Connelly. As far as I'm concerned Connelly is in the top five of modern-day mystery writers. With each book I say to myself that "he just can't top this one." And I continue to be wrong. And The Lincoln Lawyer is no exception. It just has to be the absolute best Michael Connelly novel ever!

Criminal defense attorney, Mickey Haller is a Lincoln Lawyer; meaning he works out of the backseat of his Lincoln Town Car. He's never sure if he would be able to recognize innocence if it stood in front of him. And he's not necessarily concerned whether his clients are innocent or not.

A wealthy Beverly Hills realtor is arrested for attacking a woman in her home. This type of client is what Mick Haller calls a 'franchise case.' It's a big payday and the case appears to be an easy one. But after someone close to Mick is murdered, things become murky before they clear up. Mick is facing down pure evil and he'd better be at the top of his game if he wishes to get out of this case alive.

Armchair Interviews says: The Lincoln Lawyer has everything; great characters, scintillating plot, action, evil, gritty issues, ex-wives and a hero who is unlikely. It is a 15 on a score of one to ten!