The Fifth Witness

I've read several of Michael Connelly's thrillers, and have never been disappointed. He stretches his muscles in a variety of characters, most famously detective Harry Bosch, but also a newspaper reporter, Jack McEvoy, and, in The Fifth Witness, attorney Mickey Haller, who began life in the novel The Lincoln Lawyer.

Haller is back in his fifth book. He's both stepped up in the world, but also down. He no longer takes criminal cases--he's found his niche in the fast-growing world of foreclosures, defending those who are losing their homes. He has an office, and even has an associate. But when one of his mortgage clients is arrested for murdering the bank official foreclosing her, he takes her case.

The Fifth Witness is achingly timely--the foreclosure crisis is still running unabated--and even includes Facebook, the first thriller I've read that talks about that social phenomenon. But what makes this book succeed, as does all of Connelly's books, is the characters.

Haller is sort of a white knight, but is not above exploiting all of the loopholes in the law, earning the enmity of policeman and prosecutors. His ex-wife, a prosecutor, still makes booty calls on him, but he years for them to remarry. But she can't get over his naturally slippery ethics. This even bothers his new associate, who his horrified to see what defense attorneys will do to get their clients off.

The defendant, Lisa Trammell, is also keenly drawn. Haller is never quite sure of her innocence (he points out repeatedly that defense attorneys should never ask for or be told the answer to this question--it's irrelevant) and she drives him crazy, especially when she cozies up to a sleazy Hollywood producer to sell her story to the movies (in a funny inside joke, Haller is told they are thinking of Matthew McConaughey to play him--which he did, in the film adaptation of The Lincoln Lawyer).

Aside from Haller's domestic situation (he has a teenage daughter), most of The Fifth Witness is a courtroom procedural. Haller narrates, and frequently makes asides about why he is doing the things he is doing, and also why the prosecutor is doing the things she is doing. It mostly makes for fascinating reading, and I'll take it at face value that Connelly knows his stuff. For instance, I didn't know that a prosecuting attorney gets two shots at a closing argument in Los Angeles, before and after the defense goes. Seems unfair to me. He also frankly assesses the obstacles on the long path to justice: "Desk cops are usually young and dumb and unintentionally ignorant, or old and obdurate and completely deliberate in their actions."

At the end of the book, which I found surprising and satisfying, Haller has decided to run for District Attorney, so the next in the series should take him into different territory. I look forward to it.