The Fifth Witness

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Another Kindlized Michael Connelly book read during the ordeal that is modern air travel. (It was $2.99 when I got it at Amazon a few years back, a deal that is no longer available.)

Defense lawyer Mickey Haller has fallen on tough times. Prosecutors have become much more successful at avoiding expensive criminal trials, his usual bread and butter. So he has altered his professional course, shifting into defending underwater homeowners against foreclosure on their homes. It's the Little Guy™ against greedy, sleazy banks! Never mind that Haller bills almost as much money from his clients than they owe their creditors!

But one of Haller's clients, Lisa Trammel, is accused of the grisly murder of a executive of the bank holding her mortgage. Mickey immediately shifts back to criminal defense mode; in addition, he gets Lisa to assign him representational rights to whatever eventual TV movies or best selling books are produced by this lurid ripped-from-the-headlines case. (Mickey is all about getting paid, and he's very unsentimental about it.)

Lisa is dreadful: self-promotional, self-regarding, self-dramatic and generally whiny. But did she do the deed? Mickey keeps telling himself and his co-workers that it doesn't matter: he just has to find a credible alternate hypothesis of the crime to instill a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors.

It's another fine page-turner (or Kindle button-pusher) from Mr. Connelly. The outcome of the case causes Mickey to make a life-changing decision at the end. Will it work out? I guess we'll see in the next book!


Last Modified 2024-01-26 4:21 PM EDT