The Old Switcheroo

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

What’s next? Will the nonpareil pitcher Roger Clemens decide he wants to play centerfield? Does the knee-jerk columnist Frank Rich plan to blame someone other than the president for the fact that his turkey burger was overcooked? Has country singer Shania Twain auditioned for the Metropolitan Opera?


If they did, and did it well, it would be no greater achievement than the one just pulled off by Michael Connelly.


Here is the most popular writer of cop novels in America, and the best, so what does he do? Write another novel about Harry Bosch, as his millions of readers expect and for which they wait impatiently? Not exactly. Mr. Connelly’s new book, “The Lincoln Lawyer” (Little, Brown, 404 pages, $26.95) is a legal thriller, and about as good as it gets.


Mr. Connelly’ s novel, which justly hit no. 1 its first week on the bestseller list, is about a sleazy defense attorney, Mickey Haller, who owns a little fleet of Lincoln Town Cars and conducts most of his business in the back seat. He takes out big ads in the phone book and posts signs at bus stops in the most crime-filled areas of L.A. A lot of the people who hire him have been busted on drug offenses, and he does the best he can for them.


He likes them as clients because most are repeat customers. His great fear is that he will someday actually have to defend someone who is innocent. Haller quotes from the book his father, also a lawyer, wrote: “The scariest client a lawyer will ever have is an innocent client. Because if you [mess] up and he goes to prison, it’ll scar you for life.”There is no such problem with the thugs, hookers, junkies, and other assorted idiots who go through his legal mill on a daily basis.


The superb Scott Turow has been writing legal thrillers for nearly 20 years, and he still practices a bit of law. So does John Grisham, whose novels about the justice system broke any number of sales records. Other outstanding tellers of courtroom tales include John Lescroart, Linda Fairstein, Brad Meltzer, and America’s all-time best-selling novelist, Erle Stanley Gardner. All are or have been lawyers.


Mr. Connelly was a journalist, a police reporter. Asking enough questions and hanging around with the right people, one can see how he might have learned police procedure so well. But, still, people spend a lot of time going to law school to learn how it works, and even then they need some experience before they’re any good at it. So how does this incomprehensibly gifted author manage to produce a work so utterly convincing in both legal procedure and attitude?


I asked the question, which does not mean I can answer it. I’m not a lawyer, so I cannot absolutely attest to the accuracy of everything said and done in “The Lincoln Lawyer.” Years ago, I asked Elmore Leonard how he nailed the dialogue of black and Hispanic drug dealers so perfectly. He responded by asking how I knew he got it right. Did I hang out on street corners with drug dealers? No, I said. “Then how do you know I got it right?” he asked. He had me, of course. I didn’t know, but it seemed right. It’s the same with “The Lincoln Lawyer.” Somehow, in life (like the day I met the woman who soon would be my wife), when it’s right, you know it.


It turns out that Mr. Connelly actually met a Lincoln lawyer at Dodger Stadium on opening day of the baseball season about four years ago. They sat next to each other, got to chatting, and he got the idea for the book. After that, he hung out at a bar frequented by defense attorneys in Tampa called Four Green Fields, which he transported to Los Angeles for the novel. He learned a lot of law, he says, drinking martinis with these guys.


Apart from the impeccable plot, which offers more twists than a bowl of fusilli, more turns than a crosscountry drive planned by a dyslexic, and more red herrings than a Chinese fish market, Mr. Connelly’s book offers his usual cast of memorable characters, witty and quotable dialogue, and moments of such poignancy and humanity that one feels as if he had help from Frank Capra.


Haller visits one in jail, a biker arrested yet again on drug charges, and tells him he’ll stop working on his case unless he gets paid.


“Don’t worry,” the hard case tells him. “I have your money.”


“That’s why I am worried,” Haller replies. “You have my money. I don’t have my money.”


Haller bribes bail bondsmen to refer clients to him, and when one sends him a franchise case, the one that will make him wealthy, Haller has the terrible feeling that he might have a genuinely innocent client. Mr. Connelly sets out the case, has his defense attorney and a private detective engage in the necessary investigative footwork, and maps out a perfect defense. Airtight, no doubt, a slam-dunk acquittal, and Haller’s future assured. It turns out that Haller has indeed had the misfortune to represent an innocent client, but in a series of stunning revelations he, and the reader, learn that nothing is as it seems.


Michael Connelly sits in a bar, drinks martinis with defense attorneys – you know, the people who keep killers, drug dealers, and rapists out of jail on any technicality – and gets a great book out of it. Most people would simply get a hangover the next morning. Proves he has more talent, and a stronger stomach, than most.



Mr. Penzler is the proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan and the series editor of the annual “Best American Mystery Stories.” He can be reached atopenzler@nysun.com.


The New York Sun

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