It's not his book, but Harry Bosch reappears in Michael Connelly's The Brass Verdict
by Wayne Christeson
Michael Connelly, long known for his highly regarded police procedurals featuring Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch, has returned with a criminal defense lawyer, Mickey Haller, in a new legal thriller, The Brass Verdict (Little, Brown, 422 pp., $26.99). The twist in this second book of the series is that Haller and Bosch collide for the first time in a case where Bosch tries to pin a high-profile murder on Haller's client and save Haller's life at the same time.
Set in a noir Los Angeles, the book opens with a meditation on mendacity: "Everybody lies. Cops lie. Lawyers lie. Witnesses lie. The victims lie. A trial is a contest of lies. And everybody in the courtroom knows this. The judge knows this. Even the jury knows this. They come into the building knowing they will be lied to." And, indeed, lies fill the courtroom as Haller works his case.
The story begins with the murder of yet another defense lawyer, Jerry Vincent. Vincent had been defending a Hollywood mogul, Walter Elliott, against charges that he killed his wife and her lover. Haller, fresh out of drug rehab and without a practice, is assigned Vincent's cases by court order and inherits the pending Elliott trial. Elliott accepts the substitution of Haller without qualm and seems supremely confident of acquittal, despite strong evidence pointing to his guilt. Bosch is investigating the murders in both the Vincent and Elliott cases.
The fun starts when someone tries to kill Haller, who has his suspicions about the possible perpetrator. But faced with the ethical constraints of attorney/client privilege, he is not able to help Bosch find the culprit. The workout of Haller's dilemma, as well as the Elliott trial, is ingenious. And while Connelly sometimes takes shortcuts in his analysis of legal ethics and court proceedings, the trial descriptions are realistic and exciting.
Connelly, a self-professed apostle of Raymond Chandler, draws a dark picture of the justice system, police work and the movie business. And though he may lack Chandler's depth and graceful style (who doesn't?), he is very good at what he does.
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