The Law of Innocence (Lincoln Lawyer)

Product Information

In conclusion, “The Law of Innocence” is a gripping legal thriller that explores themes of justice, family, and the lengths one will go to prove their innocence. Connelly’s meticulous attention to detail and his ability to create authentic characters make the story compelling and engaging. Connelly makes many jabs at police corruption. In addition, he doesn’t characterize the prosecuting attorney well. I guess because I’m a Bosch lover, it was difficult to have the police and distract attorneys characterized so poorly. I didn’t expect Connelly to make the reader dislike police. Mostly only corrupt police were characterized in this one. Connelly did bring Bosch in as an ally who helps with the case. Bosch plays a tiny side part in the novel.

Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival. In this story, Haller is stopped by a LAPD officer after a questionably legal reason for the stop. The Officer finds a dead body in Haller’s and it’s oozing blood from his trunk. So, it’s a bit of a stretch that a lawyer would knowingly be driving around with a dead body in his trunk, much less with a body that’s been in there for over 24 hours (and noticeably oozing blood). Well, he’s charged for the murder and sent to the correctional center in LA. He cannot make bail and needs to defend himself from jail.

Tropes:

He faces an uphill battle as he fights against a system that often favors the prosecution. So, he must find a way to convince the jury of his innocence. The outcome of the trial not only has the power to determine Haller’s fate but also to expose the dark underbelly of the city’s power players.

It’s when the teetotaller leaves The Redwood that his troubles begin. A cop car appears from nowhere and pulls him over. The Lincoln car that Haller is driving has apparently lost its rear number plate. Oh, and what’s that dripping from the boot and onto the road? Could it be BLOOD? So there is much to whet the appetite here, but somehow all the ingredients don’t quite meld together into a completely satisfying dish. There are some finely plotted moments – to be expected from a storyteller par excellence like Connelly – but there are also periods when it feels like you’re treading water rather than surging ahead. The Law of Innocence aims high but falls just short of the mark. For me, the characters truly brought this novel home. I have read every single book Michael Connelly has ever written (having started in the late 90’s) and I feel like I know the characters really well and think of them as friends. (Can I just say that the reappearance of Maggie McPherson was something else?!) I get it on some level when defense attorneys use the shopworn saying, “Every defendant deserves a vigorous defense.” But that’s hard to reconcile with reality sometimes. Does anyone really believe Charles Mason deserved a vigorous defense? How about a man in a jealous rage that the evidence showed brutally stabbed to death his ex-wife and her boyfriend? Maybe the maxim should be, “Every innocent defendant deserves a vigorous defense.” Still, I understand that under our system, we presume everyone innocent until proving them guilty, so I know why that can’t be so. The book moves at a super swift pace. With Connelly, you never know where he’s going to take you. It’s never a straight line to the finish. And even as he hones in on who may be to blame, how will he prove it? Because let’s face it, just because he’s innocent won’t mean he couldn’t be found guilty. “The only way to prove I didn’t do it is to prove who did...that’s the law of innocence.”

Need Help?

Inevitably, the plot and Haller's defense will both take a lot of interesting twists and turns. As usual in a Michael Connelly novel, the action is very propulsive, pulling the reader along and making this one, at least, stay up deep into the night to finish the novel. Connelly is best known for his great police procedurals, but he's proved that he has the chops to write great legal thrillers as well. The court scenes are very good, and all the legal maneuvering sounds totally credible. In his Haller novels, Connelly has always displayed great ability to write courtroom scenes, combining thrust-and-parry exchanges between defense and prosecution with a look at the personal motives driving all the players (including the judge). He does all that here, too, but the extended focus on the pretrial discovery process, with Bosch and investigator Cisco Wojciechowski doing the legwork while Haller sits in jail, gives the novel a double-barreled appeal. This is a fine legal thriller and a revealing character study, as we watch Haller lose a little bluster at the prospect of life behind bars” Kudos, Mr. Connelly, for another winner. I loved the concept and thoroughly enjoyed Bosch’s cameo within the story. As Haller delves deeper into the case, he uncovers a hidden world of dark secrets, where the boundaries between law enforcement and criminality become blurred.