Mickey and Harry will see a good deal more of each other before this story concludes. And one of them just happens to be Detective Harry Bosch, a fellow at the center of quite a string of crime fiction in his own right. Arriving there, he encounters two LAPD detectives already sorting through files. But now, Vincent's 'large and opulent' office, complete with a sign that chides, If I'd Kept My Mouth Shut / I Wouldn't Be Here is his. Mickey himself was never an office man he preferred working out of the back seat of one of his little fleet of Lincolns while being chauffeured to his next client appointment. Now, Mickey heads over to Vincent's office to protect confidential client files from the greedy gazes and filching fingers of the police investigating Vincent's violent demise. Over the years, Vincent and Mickey had been friends of a sort and had backed each other up professionally. Vincent's career with the district attorney's office went up in smoke, but he easily rebounded and took up more lucrative defense work. After the verdict, Woodson sauntered out of the courtroom and promptly bragged to reporters that he had in fact committed the two murders.

Fifteen years ago, Mickey, as a public defender, faced off against prosecutor Vincent and won the acquittal of one drug dealer double murder suspect Barnett Woodson by proving a key witness of Vincent's had to be lying. Vincent was murdered the night before in his office building's garage. Judge Mary Townes Holder soon informs him that he has inherited the active cases of a lawyer named Jerry Vincent. Mickey Haller, the criminal defense attorney who had put his law practice on hold while he recovered from the aftereffects of taking a shot to the gut - including a ferocious painkiller addiction - gets a call from the office of the chief judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court. It's 2007 and the Lincoln lawyer is back in business. It was a client decision and if he ever claimed I took it away from him or refused to let him testify, I would have the bar swarming me like lawyers at a plane crash. I didn't want him to testify but it was unethical for me to forbid it. His face began to turn a deep shade of crimson. 'We'll get you prepared to testify but we won't make the decision until we get into the defense phase of the trial and we see where we stand.' 'Well, ultimately it is your decision,' I said. He poked his finger at me with each syllable of the last sentence. (Reviewed by Kirstin Merrihew OCT 31, 2008) ( Jump down to see all the Michael Connelly books reivewed on ) Michael 'Mickey' Haller - Lawyer - Los Angeles, California

The brass verdict