The new Mickey Haller novel is interesting in a number of ways. For one thing, the fictional and real worlds are bridged. With the success of The Lincoln Lawyer film, lawyers all over Los Angeles are doing their work in the back of Lincoln Town Cars. The situation has become so extreme that Mickey sometimes has trouble finding his own vehicle.
The Gods of Guilt is prime Connelly. Fans of Mickey Haller will embrace it and wait impatiently for the next installment. In the new novel Mickey is trying a murder case. An electronic pimp (he does websites and also arranges liaisons) is accused of murdering a former client of Mickey’s. From the get-go he admits wrongdoing but simultaneously proclaims his innocence. The woman, Gloria Dayton, was scheduled to meet a client at the Beverly Wilshire. When she arrived the room was vacant. She has wasted her time and earned nothing. Her pimp, Andre La Cosse, believes that she is holding out on him, retaining his share of her earnings. He confronts her and even grabs her by the throat, both of which actions he admits to the police, but he did not, repeat, did not, kill her.
Nevertheless, she is dead and Mickey must defend La Cosse. He believes in his innocence and also believes that his best defense strategy is to demonstrate to the jury that another person (perhaps the individual who is caught on camera, following her from the Beverly Wilshire) was actually responsible for the murder.
The genre is courtroom/thriller and there is less of it available to readers than most readers might wish. In The Gods of Guilt (the title is one of Mickey’s terms for juries) such readers will get their fill. The entire third act of the story (ca. 150 pp.) is devoted to the trial of Andre La Cosse and Connelly’s narrative is filled with technical detail, both psychological (e.g., always address a jury so that they must turn to their left in order to see you) and legal.
In the course of the trial Mickey faces some setbacks and we watch his legal mind at work as he negotiates troubled waters. The plot is intricate but tight and relentless in its execution. The entire book is engaging, but the third act is riveting. There are also some personal dimensions to the story which serve as a minor subplot. Mickey is, as always, seeking some personal redemption along with a legal victory.
Michael Connelly’s broad audience will welcome The Gods of Guilt. Highly recommended.
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