PREVIOUS POST The good, the bad and the British Via London Underground blog on a new poll asking for 50 traits that make the British unique: 'There's nothing much in the top 10 to feel particularly proud about'. The Book People are offering 10 of Michael Connelly’s previous books at the incredible price of £9.99. Michael Connelly’s website, including a list of all his books in chronological and series order. The dramatic pace of the book is perfectly pitched throughout the suspense is maintained by an interlocking series of questions and mysteries and the writing is sensitive yet lean.

There is none of that problem here the plot hangs together tightly (the wobble I thought I’d detected in the penultimate chapter isn’t one), with drops and curve-balls in every chapter. The previous Mickey Haller book, good as it was, was slightly marred by an over-fanciful dénouement. The background details are, here as always, convincing and fascinating, whether about the intricacies of the legal system and how to play it, journalism, police procedures or what it’s like to be a movie producer. He’s great on male characters, managing to convey a combination of realism, toughness yet softness that is very appealing (he’s slightly less good at portraying women I think). The uneasy relationship between the two men, on opposite sides of the criminal fence, is one of many enjoyable themes of The Brass Verdict (a title explained at the end of the novel).Ĭonnelly is a superb all-rounder. Bosch is the officer investigating a murder, but we see him only through Mickey’s eyes in this novel, and not the usual Bosch point of view.

One of these features Harry Bosch, Connelly’s most regular character.

It is one of these cases that forms the main plot of The Brass Verdict, though there are other stories weaving through the narrative. He’s bought sharply back into his law practice, however, when he prematurely inherits a colleague’s case load. Instead he operates out of a car (he has three identical Lincolns), driving between courthouses, offices and police stations in the county as he picks up cases from people accused of the full gamut of crimes, from the most petty to the most serious.Īs the new book opens, Mickey has been out of action for more than a year, owing to an injury and a subsequent addiction to painkillers.

He’s the son of a (deceased) famous lawyer to the stars, but he hasn’t repeated his father’s success. Michael (Mickey) Haller is the Lincoln Lawyer who made his debut in the recent book of that title. The Brass Verdict is a good, old-fashioned story of the Raymond Chandler school, relying on plot, character and atmosphere rather than on special effects and gadgetry.

The brass verdict