Thursday, February 14, 2013

The Fifth Witness (A Lincoln Lawyer Novel) by Michael Connelly


February 15, 2013, Mannering Park, NSW, Australia

Paperback 2011, 421 pages.

First, the protagonist Mickey Haller is called the Lincoln Lawyer because he works out from a Lincoln town car.  Although for this case he rents an office so he can be close to the courthouse.

Lisa Trammel, whose has retained Haller in a foreclosure battle with the bank, is accused of murdering someone in the bank.  Haller initial doubts about his clients claim of innocence eventually dissipated as the case moves forward.  Despite the DNA evidence obtained by the prosecution, Haller wins his case by putting up an alternate theory that the murder is a gang-related hit.  He puts on a fifth witness who eventually pleads the fifth, thus generating reasonable doubt that gets Lisa Trammel acquitted.  At the celebration party afterwards, Haller realizes how his client actually used balloons to get the victim to look up and then murdered him.  The client is arrested again after the police discovers the buried body of her husband in her yard.

I would rate this book average.  It hangs together by-and-large, although at the end the reader is left with: so I spent hours reading this book to get to this?  To me it was a page turner, not because of the suspense, but because of the desire to get it over with.  Some of the twists and turns are quite clever, but not delivered in such a way that I would consider thrilling.

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