New York Review of Books-Rezension

When Michael ("You can call me Mickey") Haller cruised onto the scene in Michael Connelly's 2005 novel "The Lincoln Lawyer," the endearingly sleazy Los Angeles criminal defense attorney was conducting his legal practice from the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car. That made sound business sense at the time, considering his riffraff clientele and slippery work ethic. But after a humbling experience that left him close to death and addicted to painkillers, Mickey is ripe for reformation. He gets his shot at redemption in THE BRASS VERDICT (Little, Brown, $26.99) when he inherits the practice of a murdered colleague, Jerry Vincent. The big ticket in Vincent's heavy workload is the celebrity murder case of Walter Elliot, a Hollywood film executive accused of shooting his wife and her lover after surprising them trysting at his Malibu beach house. Mickey tears into the defense with breathtaking energy and professional zeal, loathing his client (who continues to hammer out movie deals in the courtroom) but fully believing in his innocence. With his taste for melodrama, Connelly makes a meal out of Mickey's antics in and out of court. If this were no more than a standard legal thriller, it would still be hard to put down. But for all the glee we might take in watching Mickey in action - psychoanalyzing the jury pool, shredding the credibility of a prosecution witness or faking civility to a powerful judge - "The Brass Verdict" is not just a conventional legal thriller but also a complicated morality play. As Mickey sees it: "Everybody lies. Cops lie. Lawyers lie. Clients lie. Even jurors lie." In his cynical view, "a trial is a contest of lies" in which the players tacitly agree to game the legal system, dispensing whatever justice is necessary to keep that system running. Since whoever killed Jerry Vincent is taking the same murderous interest in his successor, there's some justification for Mickey's dubious legal maneuvers. But that puts him on a collision course with every defense lawyer's natural enemy, the chief investigator for the prosecution - who turns out to be Harry Bosch, the brooding detective in Connelly's police procedurals. Just for the record, he lies, too. Connelly is a master of plot engineering, and he maximizes the tension between Bosch ("the man on a mission") and Mickey ("the Lone Ranger") through a series of scams and subterfuges so dangerous they could cost Mickey his life or, at the very least, his lucrative case. But after some damaging opening skirmishes, even Mickey, a maverick to the core, has to admit that "we're flip sides of the same coin." In American crime fiction, a detective is only as tough as his hometown. Just about every cop, P.I. and amateur sleuth is obligated to operate by the local rules, whether that means driving like a maniac in Los Angeles or looking like a beach bum in Miami. But Chicago is a special case, as demonstrated in Sean Chercover's novels. To be a tough guy in a city with an abiding affection for its suicidal sports teams, shady political heritage and violent criminal past, you have to be a comedian with a keen sense of irony. Ray Dudgeon, who made his debut in "Big City, Bad Blood," is a gumshoe with a high regard for the legendary humor of Chicago's scrappy newsmen, past and present. He frequents their bars, adopts their idiom, relies on their tips and often wishes he hadn't given up the game himself. Ray gets a newspaper reporter killed in TRIGGER CITY (Morrow, $23.95) when he leaks the story of a secret investigation into the sinister operations of a military contractor. For all his diligent efforts on this case, don't be surprised if his reckless behavior gets him banned from the Wise Guys Corner at the Billy Goat taproom. Archer Mayor doesn't do quaint. He might use poetic imagery to describe the austere beauty of New England's rugged mountains and snowbound villages, but as far as their crime content is concerned, his police procedurals are about as authentic as it gets. In THE CATCH (St. Martin's Minotaur, $24.95), Mayor reminds us that these picturesque northern states have dangerous borders where a highway cop can be shot to death for catching a couple of drug smugglers in a speed trap. Now that Joe Gunther, the stolid hero of this series, has outgrown his police duties as a Brattleboro cop and been named field commander of Vermont's major crimes unit, we can appreciate the byzantine complexity of the multiple agencies joining forces to work on interstate crimes. Drug smuggling is a complicated business, but nowhere near as complex as mediating the turf disputes of law-enforcement agents. In "First Drop," the British novelist Zoë Sharp shipped her tough-as-boots heroine, Charlie Fox, over to America to baby-sit the bratty teenage son of a software entrepreneur. As viewed through Charlie's wondering eyes, Florida was a carnival of crassness. In "Second Shot," she returned to serve as bodyguard to a lottery millionaire in New England. New Hampshire was a frigid death trap, but very pretty. In THIRD STRIKE (Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's Minotaur, $24.95), Charlie has relocated to New York, and some of the fun has gone out of the series. For one thing, she's so gaga about the city and so happily in love with her boyfriend that she's lost her perspective on the idiocies of American society. More detrimental, the person under her protection is her own eccentric father, which costs Charlie her critical detachment. Not to mention her sense of humor. 'Everybody lies,' says Michael Connelly's lawyer narrator. 'Cops lie. Lawyers lie. Clients lie. Even jurors lie.'