Book Review/The Brass Verdict
The Brass Verdict
By Michael Connelly
Little Brown Co.
Hardcover $26.99
By BILL DUNCAN
The News-Review
Sometimes how a writer begins his story reaches out and grabs the reader and never lets go until he’s reached the end of the book. Michael Connelly does that with his 19th suspense novel in which he brings back two of his well honed characters from earlier works, Los Angeles defense attorney Michael Haller first introduced in his 2005 “Lincoln Lawyer,” and Harry Bosch, the LAPD detective Connelly has been writing about since 1992. The melding of these two characters holds some surprises for the reader all through Connelly’s latest legal thriller, right up to the final chapter.
Here’s a reader’s test. Read this introductory paragraph and see if you aren’t hooked:
“Everybody lies. Cops lie. Lawyers lie. Witnesses lie. The victims lie. A trial is a contest of lies. And everybody in the courtroom knows this. The judge knows this. Even the jury knows this. They come into the building knowing they will be lied to. They take their seats in the box and agree to be lied to. The trick if you are sitting at the defense table is to be patient. To wait. Not for any lie. But for the one you can grab onto and forge like hot iron into a sharpened blade. You then use that blade to rip the case open and spill its guts out on the floor. 
That’s my job, to forge the blade. To sharpen it. To use it without mercy or conscience. To be the truth in a place where everybody lies.”
Thus begins “The Brass Verdict,” a title that is explained deep into the novel and is a term with a slang legal connotation. In the book world, about one in four of the fiction books sold in the United States are a mystery or a suspense novel. In America mystery novels date back to the father of the mystery novel, Edgar Allen Poe who, in 1841, published “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” introducing his detective, Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin who appeared in five other Poe stories.
Of course the first murder plot dates back to the Old Testament and the story of Cain and Able.
The courtroom later became a backdrop for mystery and suspense novels and Connelly expertly makes these courtroom scenes come alive. In his latest novel Haller is the narrator who inherits a double murder case already in progress when Jerry Vincent, the attorney representing a wealthy movie mogul, Walter Elliot, is mysteriously murdered in the parking garage of his office building. The chief justice of the courts in Los Angeles appoints Haller to take over the case that already has a trial date.
The investigator of Vincent’s murder is Harry Bosch. In true plot twisting style, Connelly immediately puts the two of them at odds The two men are on opposite sides of the criminal fence. Connelly writes convincingly about the intricacies of the legal system along with an expert knowledge of police procedures.
His client is an egotistical movie producer accused of murdering his wife and her lover at his Malibu beach house. He seems certain that he will be acquitted even though the evidence against him is damning. Haller takes no chances with his client’s guilt or innocence and puts his own ace investigator to work.
He also will use his well honed lawyer skills when questioning potential jurors during the voir dire proceeding and wants to challenge Juror Number 7, but he is overruled by his client. He gets the eerie feeling that perhaps Vincent had earlier bribed Number 7 in favor of his client.
Bosch meanwhile is convinced the killer of Vincent is now gunning for Haller. Haller himself becomes jumpy over several strange encounters and agrees to work with Bosch on a limited basis. Neither trusts the other.
It is a roller coaster ride for the reader who will have to get to the last page before fully understanding Connelly’s masterfully plotted legal jigsaw puzzle. If you have never read Connelly’s mysteries before, this book will make you a fan.
(Bill Duncan can be reached at bduncan@nrtoday.com or by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470.)
April 1st, 2009 at 5:24 am
Criminal law is changing every day in California and one of the most important decisions you need to make when you or your loved one charged with a criminal offense is, The selection of your Criminal Defense Lawyer.