Tag Archives: Michael Connelly

Wow. This is the first book in some time that I could not put down. In fact, it gave me a sleepless night on Friday, so I sat down to finish it on Saturday, because I needed to know what happened!

Michael Haller, aka The Lincoln Lawyer, has been arrested and charged with the murder of a former client. As the reader, we can be sure that he is innocent – but the prosecutor is gunning for him and the evidence looks pretty solid.

Not only does Haller have to spend much of his pre-trial preparation in jail, his former girlfriend Kendall comes home to support him, and then (spoiler) leaves him once he is taken back to jail. Combining that with a beating, things look rocky for Haller. Fortunately, he is supported by half-brother Harry Bosch (also from the Michael Connelly stable), regular investigator Cisco, and first ex-wife Maggie.

Once the FBI becomes involved, perhaps that might stack the deck even further against him – unless he can provoke them into revealing their hand.

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I tend to read these Harry Bosch thrillers in a whatever order I come across them in charity/second-hand book shops, rather than the order in which the author wrote them. Sometimes, there are fun coincidences by doing that. This book is supposedly an anomaly in which Harry Bosch works as an investigator for his half-brother Micky Haller (he refers to this as the dark side, having recently retired from the LAPD): but in The Night Fire, the last book I read in this series, he did exactly the same thing!

The crossing referred to in the title is where the victim and the accused cross paths – and that’s the problem in this case. Despite efforts by the original investigators on the crime, no connection was made between Lexi Parks, a manager at the council, and Da’Quan Foster, a former gang member who now runs a reputable business. Whilst DNA evidence put DQ at the scene of the crime, Micky Haller is convinced that his client is innocent and enrols Bosch to take a look at the case. Bosch too is unsatisfied, especially given the frenzied nature of the attack.

In a parallel story line, Ellis and Long, two LA vice cops, are taking the law into their own hands – intimidating Micky Haller and his investigator as well as tailing Bosch. The challenge for Bosch is to find the real killer of Parks, starting by tracing her missing watch (a rare and expensive timepiece). He must also persuade the accused, DQ, to divulge his real alibi, which opens another line of enquiry into the recent murder of local prostitute James Allen.

This is another excellent thriller in Connelly’s Harry Bosch series – it also features his half-brother Micky Haller.

We follow two storylines. In the first, Bosch is haunted by a murder case that is under review. The convicted killer now claims that a vital piece of evidence, a necklace belonging to the deceased, was planted in his apartment by Bosch. In the second, Bosch is part of an investigation into a ‘live’ murder case of father and son pharmacists. A gang are organising wholesale distribution of prescription drugs, sending addicts to fraudulently obtain the drugs with the necessary paperwork provided by unscrupulous medics. Someone must infiltrate the gang by going undercover – but Bosch is torn because he also needs the time to clear his name for the case under review.