Review

Amazon.com
Best-selling author Michael Connelly, whose character-driven literary mysteries have earned him a wide following, breaks from the gate in the over-crowded field of legal thrillers and leaves every other contender from Grisham to Turow in the dust with this tightly plotted, brilliantly paced, impossible-to-put-down novel.

Criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller's father was a legendary lawyer whose clients included gangster Mickey Cohen (in a nice twist, Cohen's gun, given to Dad then bequeathed to his son, plays a key role in the plot). But Dad also passed on an important piece of advice that's especially relevant when Mickey takes the case of a wealthy Los Angeles realtor accused of attempted murder: "The scariest client a lawyer will ever have is an innocent client. Because if you [screw] up and he goes to prison, it'll scar you for life."

Louis Roulet, Mickey's "franchise client" (so-called becaue he's able and willing to pay whatever his defense costs) seems to be the one his father warned him against, as well as being a few rungs higher on the socio-economic ladder than the drug dealers, homeboys, and motorcycle thugs who comprise Mickey's regular case load. But as the holes in Roulet's story tear Mickey's theory of the case to shreds, his thoughts turn more to Jesus Menendez, a former client convicted of a similar crime who's now languishing in San Quentin. Connelly tellingly delineates the code of legal ethics Mickey lives by: "It didn't matter...whether the defendant 'did it' or not. What mattered was the evidence against him--the proof--and if and how it could be neutralized. My job was to bury the proof, to color the proof a shade of gray. Gray was the color of reasonable doubt." But by the time his client goes to trial, Mickey's feeling a few very reasonable doubts of his own.

While Mickey's courtroom pyrotechnics dazzle, his behind-the-scenes machinations and manipulations are even more incendiary in this taut, gripping novel, which showcases all of Connelly's literary gifts. There's not an excess sentence or padded paragraph in it--what there is, happily, is a character who, like Harry Bosch, deserves a franchise series of his own. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Veteran bestseller Connelly enters the crowded legal thriller field with flash and panache. Los Angeles criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller regularly represents lowlifes, but he's no slickster trolling for loopholes in the ethics laws. He's haunted by how he mishandled the case of (probably innocent) Jesus Menendez, and, though twice divorced, he's on good terms with his ex-wives; one of them manages his office, and the other, an ambitious assistant DA, occasionally tumbles back into bed with him. When Mickey signs on to defend young real estate agent Louis Roulet against charges of assault, he can't help seeing dollar signs: Roulet's imperious mother will spend any amount to prove her beloved son's innocence. But probing the details of the case, Mickey and private investigator Raul Levin dig up a far darker picture of Roulet's personality and his past. Levin's murder and a new connection to the Menendez case make Mickey wonder if he's in over his head, and his defense of Roulet becomes a question of morality as well as a test of his own survival. After Connelly spends the book's first half involving the reader in Mickey's complex world, he thrusts his hero in the middle of two high-stakes duels, against the state and his own client, for heart-stopping twists and topflight storytelling. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Defending deadbeats is a way of life for Los Angeles attorney Michael "Mickey" Haller. Operating out of the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car (hence the moniker, "Lincoln Lawyer"), Haller takes on the case of Louis Ross Roulet, a rich, young Beverly Hills realtor accused of beating a prostitute. Roulet's guilt or innocence is of little concern to Haller, who sees him as nothing more than a "franchise," a client who can make him a lot of money over an extended period of time. But the deeper Haller digs, the more he suspects Roulet might have been framed. Links to a past case, which landed a client on Death Row, prompt the jaded lawyer to reassess his professional M.O. This is the first legal thriller for Connelly, author of the best-selling series featuring Los Angeles police detective Harry Bosch and winner of every major prize in crime fiction. It has all the right stuff: a sinuous plot, crisp dialogue, and a roster of reprehensible characters (including a marijuana- and crystal meth-dealing biker and an internet con artist who steals credit card numbers through a tsunami relief fund). As the trial progresses, Mickey ponders the words of his late lawyer father, who knew the most frightening client of all was an innocent man. "If . . . he goes to prison, it'll scar you for life."

USA Today
he freeways are a perfect metaphor for the intricate, fast-moving plot of Michael Connelly's latest novel, The Lincoln Lawyer.

Widely praised for his best-selling series featuring on-again, off-again LAPD detective Harry Bosch, Connelly again has taken one of his occasional forays into a stand-alone novel filled with new characters and new twists but still grounded in the crime genre.

The Lincoln Lawyer is Connelly's first legal thriller and is one of the best novels he has written, if not the best. That's high praise for an author whose 15 other books — including The Poet, Bloodwork, which was made into a movie starring Clint Eastwood, The Closers and The Narrows— are hailed as models of crime writing.

The protagonist here is L.A. defense attorney Mickey Haller, who makes the best use of his time by doing most of his work from the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car, hence, the book's title.

Maxim
If the back seat of a Lincoln could talk, you'd be regaled with tales of impromptu conception, beer farts, and in Mickey Haller's makeshift office, how to beat a murder rap.

Haller, an LA defense attorney, is renowned throughout the underworld for getting his questionable clients off Scot-free, a reputation that lands him the biggest potential payout of his career. All he has to do is convince the jury that his client, Louis Roulet, did not brutally assault a young prostitute; which, given Roulet's past, would be the biggest courthouse con job since the Simpson trial.

While Connelly's first foray into legalese takes plenty of enthralling sharp turns, it's character-driven prose that kneads the plot along. Haller is intentionally despicable and the reformation of this ambulance chaser adds an alternately worthwhile subplot to an already suspenseful yarn. The lone shortcoming falls on Roulet, who is perhaps too hyperbolically evil, but probably necessary in order to stand apart from the other bottom feeders trolling the courts.

While Lawyer could've degenerated into an author with too many parking tickets exacting revenge on the justice system, Mr. Connelly instead delivers a murder mystery that's easy to digest in a single sitting. Just like a last meal!