Review by New York Times Review
NO MAN'S NIGHTINGALE (Scribner, $26) is Ruth Rendell's 24th Inspector Wexford procedural mystery in almost 50 years, so we're naturally curious about how that venerable detective may have mellowed in retirement. Well, his mind is still sharp enough to solve a murder case bungled by Mike Burden, his old deputy and now detective superintendent of the Kingsmarkham constabulary. Always a tolerant man, Wexford is ever more alarmed by the racism and bigotry that have taken root in his little patch of England and were a factor in the murder of the Rev. Sarah Hussain, abiracial single mother raising an out-of-wedlock child. And, if anything, he's grown more caustic about barbaric insults to the mother tongue, like the Alternative Service Book that replaced the Book of Common Prayer in Anglican churches. But while Wexford seems content to let a younger generation make its own mistakes, he does feel diminished by the loss of his professional status. He's also become quite testy about the limits imposed by age and, more annoyingly, by restrictive social attitudes about age. "He was realizing how insignificant he had become in the great scheme of law and order... of having nothing to do in a society where doing things was all-important." More philosophical? I'd say so. Mellow? Not on your life. MICKEY HALLER IS the kind of lawyer who works out of the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car and gets paid for his services in gold bricks. In Michael Connelly's latest legal thriller, THE GODS OF GUILT (Little, Brown, $28), a "digital pimp" arrested for murdering one of the prostitutes whose professional websites he manages joins Mickey's sterling client list of thieves, rapists, embezzlers and killers. But for once this ethics-challenged criminal defense lawyer needn't resort to any shady shenanigans because Andre La Cosse didn't kill Giselle Dallinger - or Gloria Dayton, as she was known to Mickey seven years earlier, when he helped her get out of the game and staked her to what he thought would be a new life in Hawaii. Disheartened to learn that he hadn't "changed the direction of a life" after all, Mickey feels compelled to perform another good deed to relieve his conscience. "There is no more noble a cause on this planet than to stand for the wrongly accused," he's advised by the old lawyer he considers his life coach. So saving La Cosse and finding Gloria's real killer might keep him from being haunted by the "12 apostles, the gods of guilt" who sit in life's jury box, passing judgment on him for a colorful but hardly glorious career of snatching lowlifes from the jaws of the law. An honorable performance in the courtroom might even redeem Mickey in the eyes of his 16-year-old daughter, who can't forgive her father for springing a guilty client who turned around and killed two people she knew in a drunken-driving accident. At this point, you want to buckle up for the roller coaster of a trial this has all been leading up to. Connelly stays cool as he crosscuts between tense courtroom scenes before the "gods of guilt" and brutal confrontations outside the courthouse with the hired killers from a Sinaloan drug cartel, a rogue government agent and some plain old crooked Los Angeles detectives. Mickey's got a lot riding on this trial - but, win or lose, let's hope his attempts at character reformation don't last too long. NOTHING JACK TAYLOR does should surprise readers of Ken Bruen's poetically violent novels - except how long this bad boy manages to lay off the booze, cigarettes and brawling in PURGATORY (Mysterious Press/ Grove/Atlantic, $24). But rest easy: Our roaring lad eventually rises to confront the taunts of a serial killer who wants him to join his crusade. The turning point for Jack is a recruitment dinner with a mysterious billionaire intent on acquiring the remaining assets of the faltering local economy. "You're a sort of Irish Zelig," he tells Jack, "witness to the history of Galway." But the things Jack witnesses these days - feral teenage gangs, high-school girls wasted on dope, thieves who steal the gold chalices from churches - would cause a saint to go blind. And Jack, whose heroism is fueled by "plain old-fashioned rage, bile and bitterness," is no saint. Never was, never will be. Amen. THE DOMESTIC AFFAIRS of fictional sleuths are rarely as fascinating as their authors think they are. But you have to admit that Clare Fergusson, the Episcopal priest in Julia Spencer-Fleming's mysteries, set in the Adirondacks of upstate New York, leads an eventful life. THROUGH THE EVIL DAYS (Thomas Dunne/Minotaur, $25.99) finds Clare very recently married, obviously pregnant and back at her pastoral duties in Millers Kill after serving in Iraq. But because of the awkward timing of that pregnancy she's been told to resign her post or be called up on charges of "sexual misconduct and conduct unbecoming to a priest." Meanwhile, Russ Van Alstyne, Clare's new husband and the local chief of police, has just learned the town council is proposing to shut down his department and outsource the work to the state police. Given all this Sturm und Drang, it's amazing Spencer-Fleming manages to carry off a layered plot that opens with an arson, a double homicide and a kidnapping and expands into a broader picture of the drug use, domestic violence and desolation squeezing the life out of this small town.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [December 1, 2013]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* When we last saw Mickey Haller (The Fifth Witness, 2011), the hot-shot maverick attorney who works out of his Lincoln Town Car was fed up with defending bad guys and had decided to run for district attorney. Well, that didn't work out. Too much politics. Now Mickey's back with the bad guys, defending a high-tech pimp accused of killing one of his girls, who happens to be a former friend of Mickey's. Naturally, the case has multiple levels, involving a bent DEA agent and requiring an unholy coalition with a drug lord. As he's done throughout the Haller series, Connelly shows a remarkable ability to bring the courtroom alive not just the details of the case at hand and the procedural machinations but also the personal drama simmering below the surface of the thrust and counterthrust of legal strategy. There is tragedy along the way to a verdict this time, and Mickey must confront his personal gods of guilt just as he does the jury in the courtroom. Connelly's Harry Bosch series has typically dug deeper into personal demons and questions of existential identity than the Haller novels, but this time the fast-talking attorney is forced to look inward, where his tricks of the trade do him little good. A gripping novel, both in the courtroom and outside of it, and a testament to the melancholy maturing of Mickey Haller. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: As always, a national media campaign will support the launch of Connelly's latest, as it climbs best-seller lists. Connelly's books have sold more than 50 million copies worldwide.--Ott, Bill Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Edgar-winner Connelly's fifth novel featuring Mickey Haller (aka "the Lincoln Lawyer"), the L.A. defense attorney who uses a Lincoln town car as a mobile office, opens with a brilliantly staged bit of legal maneuvering, but the real action begins in chapter three: Andre La Cosse, a high-tech pimp, is charged with murdering one of his clients, Giselle Dallinger, a prostitute who turns out to be known to Haller as Gloria Dayton, from 2005's The Lincoln Lawyer. The case is fishy, and Haller's crew goes to work: investigator Cisco Wojciechowski, case manager Lorna Taylor, associate Jennifer Aronson, and driver Earl Briggs. Haller's strategy is not to uncover the truth but to develop a credible alternative theory of the crime, and the investigation that follows is like a police procedural seen from the other side of the criminal justice world. In the climactic courtroom scene, Haller appeals directly to the members of the jury, "the gods of guilt" of the title. While readers will learn little that is new about Haller's complex backstory (mostly involving his estranged daughter), they will find plenty of drama, danger, and suspense in this gem of a legal thriller. Agent: Philip Spitzer, Philip G. Spitzer Literary. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Peter Giles capably narrates Mickey Haller's newest case (after The Fifth Witness), which takes him back to a former client he thought he had rescued from prostitution. But the death of the woman known as Glory Days pulls Mickey into a complex world of double crosses and deceit as his attempts to prove the innocence of his new client tie back to his earlier defense of the victim. It is also a story of losses-including his beloved Lincoln, his relationship with his daughter, and a member of his defense team. The romantic subplot may seem superfluous, but that is less memorable and less significant than the author's skillful insider discussions of his defense strategy and the necessary chess-like moves that requires. A strong addition to the series. VERDICT Highly recommended for mystery and courtroom drama fans. ["Aficionados of legal thrillers and series fans will enjoy Connelly's latest outing," read the review of the Little, Brown hc, LJ Xpress Reviews, 11/8/13.]-Joyce Kessel, Villa Maria Coll., Buffalo (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The fifth in the best-selling Lincoln Lawyer series. A former newspaper reporter, Connelly (The Reversal, 2010, etc.) has moved into the territory dominated by former lawyers John Grisham and Scott Turow in this series of novels featuring defense attorney Mickey Haller, a hustler whose office is the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car and whose approach to the legal system prizes pragmatism over idealism. For Haller, there was a "fine line between seeking the truth and seeking a verdict in your client's favor. They weren't always the same thing." Doing a good job as a defense lawyer sometimes finds him at odds with a law-abiding society, including his estranged daughter, devastated when one of his clients freed on a technicality caused a tragic death. "I had to have faith that Hayley would eventually come to realize that the world was not black and white," explains the protagonist. "That it was gray and the gray area was where her father dwelled." Such prose belabors the obvious, and the frequent invocation of the title (in reference to juries in particular and to all others who would pass judgment on Haller) is heavy-handed. Yet the narrative momentum sustains itself, as Haller investigates a case that doesn't look like it will change his daughter's opinion of him. He's defending a cyberpimp (a sign of the times; he designs websites) accused of murdering a prostitute who not only had a close relationship with Haller, but who had recommended him to her suspected killer if he ever needed a lawyer. Pretty quickly, it becomes plain who the good guys and bad guys are (by the standards of the series), with few surprises along the way. There is also a perfunctory romance, a few issues on the table and some plot developments that suggest that this isn't the end of the series. Not much of a thriller or a mystery, but illuminating about the ways in which the law works and doesn't.]]]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
