My latest read was The Law of Innocence by Michael Connelly. This is the sixth book in the Lincoln Lawyer series. Mickey Haller is charged with murder and must defend himself in this installment. While this gives this book a unique twist, the storyline is predictable. Its style is very classic Connely, but it just doesn’t engage you as some of his earlier work does.
Connelly released The Law of Innocence in the fall of 2020. Like a couple of the other books he released after the 2016 election, he overtly expresses his anti-Trump sentiment through the characters at a couple of points in the story. He has illegal behavior by police and the judicial system as key story elements. He also introduced the 2020 pandemic events into the last part of the story. While Connelly has always leveraged current events and social themes as part of the context for his books, they were there as a natural, supportive part of the storyline and written in a balanced, believable way. In this book and some other recent ones, they don’t seem like natural parts of the story or consistent with how you would expect the characters to think. It just comes across as pandering. It’s a shame.
The Law of Innocence
Michael Connelly
Defense attorney Mickey Haller is pulled over by police, who find the body of a client in the trunk of his Lincoln. Haller is charged with murder and can’t make the exorbitant $5 million bail slapped on him by a vindictive judge.
Mickey elects to defend himself and must strategize and build his defense from his jail cell in the Twin Towers Correctional Center in downtown Los Angeles, all the while looking over his shoulder–as an officer of the court he is an instant target.
Mickey knows he’s been framed. Now, with the help of his trusted team, including Harry Bosch, he has to figure out who has plotted to destroy his life and why. Then he has to go before a judge and jury and prove his innocence.
Released November 10, 2020
433 pages