The Brass Verdict: A Novel (Mickey Haller) by Michael Connelly
|
List Price: Our Price: $0.47 You Save: $26.52 (98%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The Brass Verdict: A Novel (Mickey Haller)
Book Review: The Verdict is - Excellent!
Summary: 5 Stars
I loved the Lincoln Lawyer and although you don't need to have read that one first to follow this storyline, I would still recommend doing so, just so you get a better appreciation of this book's man character Mickey Haller. I say that because there are a fair few people out there who are only interested in Harry Bosch novels and won't touch Connelly's great standalone storylines (hence the Lincoln Lawyer) so if you are one of those people, you may be a bit disappointed as 90% of this novel is through the eyes of Mickey Haller, Bosch isn't a just a cameo appearance by any means, but he's definitely a side character in this one. But you will learn something major about him in the final pages. Haller is a great character though and you're missing out if you're not getting into him as well!
This is the second Haller novel. In this book Haller is summoned by the chief judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court which is weird as he hasn't been practicing law for some time now. Not wanting to be in contempt he goes before her and is told his friend and former colleague Jerry Vincent was murdered and named him as beneficiary for his law practice. Haller knows this is true as he has the quid pro quo agreement for his practice to go to Vincent and both lawyers names appear somewhere in each clients documents. Haller had planned on getting back into the game but Vincent had the client of the year, Walter Elliot, a rich movie studio owner on trial for murdering his wife and her lover. This along with his numerous other clientele, mean Haller will be coming back in the deep end. Still he'll make a lot of money off of the Elliot gravy train, and the publicity will get him even more clients, assuming he doesn't walk his contract to another lawyer. So Haller decides to get back in the game and as the pages turn we get to read him in action at the same great pace he was at in the Lincoln Lawyer. Throw in Harry Bosch who was taking advantage of no one stopping him at the crime scene to go through Vincent's client files in order to find his killer and we've got a duel between Connelly's two biggest characters to lift the book to whole another level.
Book Review: Haller and Bosch Together: Literary Dynamite!
Summary: 5 Stars
Haller and Bosch Together: Literary Dynamite!
Absolutely outstanding read. Michael Connelly is the best mystery writer today. His energetic style and pointed prose makes for both a dynamic and informative story. What makes Mr. Connelly so enjoyable is that he teaches as he writes. One learns how both the legal and police fit into the overall judicial system. Both adversarial and symbiotic in nature, each feeds on the other to make our justice system work. Mr. Connelly takes the reader through the complexities of both while telling a complex mystery story of murder, lies, intrigue, deception, and personal loss. He shows how the system can work to successfully bring about justice. It is both ugly and messy but in the end the system does work-most of the time.
The story is also about 2 men, Mickey Haller and Harry Bosch, who fight their own demons and eventually come to an understanding of just who they are. This realization is multi-faceted and makes the story a swirling cauldron of doubt and self-actualization. I won't give away the dramatic conclusion but the literary road to get there is well worth the journey. Mr. Connelly in his wonderful story telling way presents a mystery that has many possibilities but only one reality. Nope, you can't guess the ending. Several times I thought I figured it out only to be fooled. Bravo Mr. Connelly, you done good real good.
As always Mr. Connelly character development was superb and the forte of this book. He has a way to keep developing his characters and flesh them out in such a way that they are the story. No superficiality here, depth and more depth piled on mystery.
No gratuitous sex, language, or violence.
I heartily recommend The Brass Verdict. A must buy. I eagerly await Mr. Connelly's next novel. The Mickey Haller character is wonderful and should provide many new mysteries. Just don't forget my good friend Harry Bosch-He may be getting older but there stories in them legs yet!!
Book Review: Very good, and fun
Summary: 5 Stars
I've liked Michael Connelly's series of Harry Bosch novels since it started. I like Connelly so much that I've followed him into territory that I normally don't like, namely business crime, a book with a burglar for a protagonist, and even a book with a lawyer for a protagonist. Personally I'm more likely to root for the burglar than the lawyer. The lawyer, anyway, starred in the very successful novel "The Lincoln Lawyer", titled after the car he uses instead of an office, moving from courthouse to courthouse. His name is Mickey Haller, and he's the son of a famous defense attorney from the 50s and 60s. Apparently Mickey senior had a wandering eye, to the extent that he even fooled around with a prostitute, and that liaison resulted in Connelly's main character in most of his books, Harry Bosch.
In the current book, Haller is called one morning and informed that a friend of his, another defense attorney, has been murdered. Haller has been retired from practicing law since the events at the end of "The Lincoln Lawyer", but he's about ready to resume his practice and sees this as an opportunity. The interesting thing is that the lawyer in question had a very high-profile case on his front burner, a murder case where a very well-known studio head has been accused of killing his soon-to-be-ex-wife and her interior decorator boyfriend. The prosecution case looks shaky, and Haller thinks he can poke holes in it at will, so he leaps at the chance to take over. There is one catch, however: whoever killed his predecessor is still out there, and the police don't have any serious leads.
Michael Connelly is one of the best mystery writers in the country right now. While this mystery doesn't rank up there with his best (The Concrete Blonde and Angel's Flight, to my mind, along with Blood Work and perhaps The Poet) it's still a very good mystery. I would recommend it to anyone, especially those traveling somewhere: it's about the right length for a plane flight.
Book Review: Outstanding
Summary: 5 Stars
Criminal defense lawyer (excuse the redundancy!), Jerry Vincent, is shot to death in his car late one night, just outside his office. Mickey Haller, inherits -- literally -- Vincent's clients, including Hollywood movie mogul Walter Elliot, accused of murdering his wife and her lover. The trial, with all of its attendant publicity, is scheduled to begin in just a week, and Elliot demands that Haller proceed to trial without asking for a continuance.
Rushing to prepare for trial, Haller begins to wonder if Elliot's case involves more than just a double-murder. Why won't Elliot allow him to ask for a continuance? Was Vincent's murder connected to Elliot's case? Are any of Vincent's other cases linked either to Vincent's murder or to Elliot's case? Despite the strength of the prosecution's case against Elliot, both Elliot and Vincent seemed highly confident of winning, but Haller finds nothing in Vincent's files to justify such confidence, and Elliot himself seems to be withholding information from Haller for some reason. Is there something missing from Vincent's files? And one of the police detectives investigating Vincent's murder, Harry Bosch, seems to be running a con game of his own, perhaps in conjunction with the FBI, who may or may not be investigating alleged corruption in the local court system. If the FBI was conducting such an investigation, was Vincent involved in it at all, either as a target, or as a confidential informant, or as a lawyer for one of the targets? Maybe that's why he was killed.
There are plenty of interesting characters, plenty of interesting observations about how the criminal justice system works, and the plot twists and turns are so devious, I bet the ending surprised even Connelley himself.
A terrific story by a terrific writer. Ranks right up there with "Blood Work" and "Trunk Music."
Book Review: Excellent
Summary: 5 Stars
First Sentence: Everybody lies.
Michael Haller had decided to return to practice but not at this level. A former colleague is murdered and had designated Haller as the attorney to take over all his cases should something happen to him. One of those cases is defending producer Walter Elliot. Elliot has been accused of murdering his wife and her lover. Elliot insists on going to trial as soon as possible and seems very unconcerned about the trial.
In the meantime, LAPD Detective Harry Bosch is giving Haller a hard time about Vincent's murder and information Heller may have to help Bosch solve the case.
Although Haller is the protagonist, it was interesting to see how Connelly used Bosch as almost the antagonist here. Haller is a very interesting character and refreshing to see things from the lawyer's prospective. Connelly presents the case of the defense lawyer well with wonderful detail of putting together the case and of courtroom procedure. He has also made Haller very realistically human, particularly his response to attack. He doesn't, however, leave the other characters as simple shadows, but brings them all to life.
Most interesting is the way Connelly includes Harry Bosch, the detective from Connolly's primary series. Here, Bosch is presented as almost an antagonist to Haller making the point that the police and the lawyers can often be on opposite sides in the way they work for the same end.
The sense of place is very well done, as is the dialogue. With each new book, I am reminded of just how good an author is Connelly. His greatest strength, in this book, is the plot. I was caught up from the very beginning, and loved each twist along the way. I never saw where it was going, right to the very end and there wasn't a single miss-step.