So I really did enjoy this one, but thought the angst that Haller was dealing with was ridiculous. I also wish that Connelly had showed us Haller running for the DA's office and how the scandal affected him in the moment. We are hearing about events from about a year ago in the series and it just drove me up the wall we didn't get to experience it. 

Haller is down and out in this one. He has returned to drinking, and seems to be going through the motions. Haller lost trying to run as a DA after a former client of his ends up killing someone close to Hayley and Maggie. Haller is blamed and just gets destroyed at the polls. What's worse is that Hayley and even Maggie barely speak to him anymore. He hasn't seen his daughter in a year, and when he does see Maggie at the courthouse she turns and goes in another direction. Haller keeps seeing his father's old partner (called Legal) who is doing his best to get Haller to get over his shit and get back to defending his clients. A fire has gone out in Haller and everyone can see it.

When Haller gets a call to defend a man who is charged with killing a prostitute, Haller is curious how his name was brought up. The ties into the case that first brought us Haller (The Lincoln Lawyer) was pretty fantastic. Haller starts to get back a little of what he lost in the preceding year and even gets a love interest in this one (that I ended up feeling sorry for throughout). 

Haller is ready to take down the dragon in this one since he realizes that he truly has a client that is innocent, problem is that there are many that want him to go to jail since it would bring up a lot of corruption. 

We have Haller get put in harm's way and we lose a character that I loved. Haller talks about the personal jury that judges us all in the end, and I feel for him. He's definitely got his groove back by the end of the book. But what comes before definitely changes him. 

We get recurring characters in this one. We have Lorna judging Haller a lot in this one. I wish we had some more dialogue between these two since Haller acts way too much like her husband at times and she is angry at Haller too.

We have a Bosch sighting (seriously though it's weird Bosch was all blase about his half brother almost being killed) that made me shrug a bit.

The court room scenes still are my favorite parts of this series.

The ending leaves Haller at a type of peace for the moment. 

So this was a really great installment of the Lincoln Lawyer series. Sometimes Connelly gets a little too meta for me though (talking about Matthew McConaughey and who would play Mickey Haller in a movie starring him) but that wasn't too annoying for me. I think the biggest reason I can gush about this one, is that if you read this and "The Gods of Guilt" back to back the development or spiraling of Haller's character was wonderful to read. We also get a pop up of Bosch in this one. Seriously though, he sounds even more anti-social and just odd in the Haller books. 

"The Fifth Witness" is dealing with Haller a bit down in his luck. He had to start looking for income elsewhere and has now taken on an associate to help him with foreclosure cases. When a client of his (who is a pain in the ass) is arrested for the murder of a banker that she blames for her losing her house. 

Ohh yeah. So I loved that Connelly takes about the foreclosure crisis in America. It was insane to me when I was reading about what was going on. People being approved for loans they 100 percent could not afford all without realizing that due to many of them doing an adjustable mortgage that they would have to pay hundreds of dollars more than they planned. I liked that Haller was going in as a crusader about it and also being straight forward that all he is doing is buying his clients some time, cause they are going to lose their homes.

Haller was really good in this one. He has a new driver (Rojas) and is turning a new page in his relationship with his ex (Maggie) and his daughter. They seem to almost be a family again and Haller really wants them back. With this new murder case he is once again seen as the bad guy cause he's a defense lawyer.

I don't get that though. Everyone is entitled to a defense in this country, I don't get why anyone acts like defense lawyers are garbage. We all going to pretend that there have not been many men who have wrongfully been incarcerated in this country? I really did enjoy Haller's "The Lincoln Lawyer" because it does show Haller having to deal with the fact that a client of his is innocent and the guilt he feels because he was going through his usual motions for that case. 

I did love that Haller called out Maggie about her wanting to be with him, but wanting him to do something different cause she's a prosecutor. Haller comes at a turning point in his career in this one due to wanting to do what he can to be with his family. I did hate a love (not really) scene between Haller and Maggie cause it made me cringe inside. Haller also justifying doing something illegal to Maggie made me want to pound my head. What I love is that he justifies verbally but knows he is full of crap.

Haller's client Lisa Trammel is an asshole. Seriously. I can't even imagine having to deal with her. I was the least surprised person by things revealed to us as readers later. But that's because I think Connelly showed his hand there a little bit.

We also get recurring characters in this one. We have Lorna, Cisco (I can't even spell his last name) Maggie, Hayley, and also Bosch. 

I did love the legal explanations for things. And also how Connelly shows the timeline in his books. Trials are not these things that just pop up and happen in a week. You get to see Haller and company run down witnesses and evidence. And I loved how Haller has to choose what to push and pull on depending on the witnesses involved. 

The flow was really good in this one. I liked how Haller just didn't back down on doing what he had to for his client, even though she drove him up the wall.

The ending was fantastic. I cracked up at what happens and it looks like we get an exciting new chapter for Haller to look forward to. 

Wow. This was a really good book. We get a team-up of Haller and Bosch. Haller doing his own moves in this one that leaves you wondering who the good guys are. And the ending with Bosch determined to find out the truth.

Haller is called upon by the DA's office to prosecute a retrial of a man who was accused of abducting and murdering a young child. The man accused, Jason Jessup, is given a new trial after some DNA shows that it does not match him. But all evidence points to Jessup. It's going to be up to Haller and Bosch to run down some witnesses and determine if Jessup is the killer they think he is. Haller wants Bosch as her investigator and asks his ex-wife Maggie to be his first chair. He hopes doing this will get her in good stead with the DA's office and also with him.

There is some awkwardness between Haller and Bosch in this one. Haller's ex, Maggie seems to be coming onto Bosch at times. It ended up making me dislike her. Haller acts like a jackass, but he does have a great legal mind and knows how to maneuver. But, I have to say that the book surprised me in a good way. I wasn't expecting the ending I got.

The book is weird though since Connelly chooses to tell Haller's POV in the first person and Bosch's POV is in the third person. Either tell them both in first person or third. Either way it was distracting. I got used to it though which is why I still rated the book 5 stars.

FYI, make sure you read this book after you read "Nine Dragons". I read Haller books back to back and for the most part have been reading Haller's books back to back so some things are callbacks to earlier Bosch books.

Wow what a great follow-up to "The Lincoln Lawyer". This book does not have sequel disease thank goodness, it was gripping from beginning to end.

It's been a couple years since the events in "The Lincoln Lawyer" and Mickey Haller has been retired from law for a year. After being shot in the last book his recovery caused him to become addicted to pain pills which led to him almost losing everything. When he's called into a judge's chambers and told that he has inherited a dead lawyer's practice, just like that Haller is back in the saddle again.

So "The Brass Verdict" focuses on Mickey doing what he can for his new clients and finding out that he might have a huge franchise case involving a Hollywood movie producer whose standing accused of murdering his wife and her lover.

Just like in "The Lincoln Lawyer" not all is as it appears and it takes a lot of twists and turns to find out who's truly innocent in this one.

We also get an appearance by another one of Michael Connelly's characters Harry Bosch. Now as many of you know this year I've had a kind of grudging respect, than love, than just general annoyance with Harry Bosch. I really do think that he's an intriguing character and Connolly has allowed him to grow. But the last couple of Bosch books have not exactly thrilled me. When Haller appeared in the Bosch books I already knew about the twosomes connection so getting to read it backwards like this was actually pretty cool. I always thought that in the Bosch books Mickey wasn't that interesting and was kind of a jerk, but when you read it from his point of view, he's actually a pretty straightforward person.

So Haller and Bosch are going head-to-head because the latter is trying to investigate the murder of the lawyer who left Haller the practice.  

We do get welcome appearances by other characters that we've rad about from the prior books, Lorna, Mickey's second wife, and we get to see him interact more with his young daughter, and his former wife Maggie McPherson. We also get an introduction to another investigator, Cisco, that I really liked as well.

The writing was typical Connolly, you definitely know the man knows his way around a courtroom, knows how prosecutors and defense attorneys are supposed to prepare. And it was really cool to read about how juries are picked and to get to see people at trial.

I thought the flow was quite good in this one and there was nothing that I could actually quibble about when it came to the writing or flow.

I thought the setting of a different Los Angeles one that's kind of seedy and just not typical for people who aren't living as A list celebrities is always a nice and realistic read.

The ending definitely leaves some secrets revealed and I definitely didn't see a couple coming at all.

Bank: 
April 15: $20
April 17: $23. I read "The Wangs Vs the World", electronic pages 368.
April 24: $28. I read "Dream Wedding", electronic pages 512.
April 25: $28. Landed on BL and had to post a vacation photo or tell a story about a vacation.
April 29: $31. Read "Whitethorn Woods", 354 pages Kindle edition, $3.00
April 29: $34. Read "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", 256 pages;$3.00.
May 4: $37. Read "The Ghost Brigades" Paperback, 346 pages; $3.00
May 8: $42. Read "American Gods" Hardcover, 465 pages; $5.00. 
May 8: $45. Read "Moon Called" 298 pages Kindle edition; $3.00.
May 13: $50. Read "Solitude Creek" 434 pages electronic; $5.00. 
May 14: $53. Read "No Country for Old Men" 320 pages Kindle edition; $3.00
May 19: $56. Read "The Witches: Salem, 1692" 384 ebook; $3.00
May 30: $59. Read "The Good Earth" 372 pages ebook: $3.00
June 4: $62. Read "The Wind in the Willows" paperback edition, 256 pages: $3.00
June 27: $67. Read "The Lincoln Lawyer" kindle edition, 528 pages: $5.00.

THE BIG SHAKE UP

June 28: $75. Read "That Summer" kindle edition, 174 pages: $8.00.
June 30: $84. Read "And Then There Were None", paperback, 247 pages: $9.00. Multiplier due to second time on BL space. 
July 4: $94. Read "The Changeling" Kindle edition 448 pages; $10.00
July 4: $100. Read "The Girl Who Chased the Moon" Kindle edition, 280 pages; $6.00.
July 6: $106. Read "The Rivers of London" 396 pages; Kindle edition, $6.00.

July 8: $121. Read "The Brass Verdict" 419 pages; Kindle edition. $15.00 Multiplier due to second time on New Orleans Square 21.

I grudgingly finished this. The collection just meanders after a while and was missing what I love about Maeve Bunch's books. Just publishing a book with her writings from newspapers from over 50 years sounded like a good idea, but there was but there was no them tying things together after the he stories from the 60s.