The Brass Verdict: A Novel (A Lincoln Lawyer Novel) - Hardcover

Connelly, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0316166294 ISBN 13: 9780316166294

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company, 2008

Synopsis

Things are finally looking up for defense attorney Mickey Haller. After two years of wrong turns, Haller is back in the courtroom. When Hollywood lawyer Jerry Vincent is murdered, Haller inherits his biggest case yet: the defense of Walter Elliott, a prominent studio executive accused of murdering his wife and her lover. But as Haller prepares for the case that could launch him into the big time, he learns that Vincent's killer may be coming for him next.

Enter Harry Bosch. Determined to find Vincent's killer, he is not opposed to using Haller as bait. But as danger mounts and the stakes rise, these two loners realize their only choice is to work together.

Bringing together Michael Connelly's two most popular characters, The Brass Verdict is sure to be his biggest book yet.

About this title

About the Author

Michael Connelly, a #1 New York Times bestselling novelist and a former journalist, has won numerous crime fiction prizes. He lives in Florida.

Reviews

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Jonathan Yardley Graham Greene liked to distinguish between his serious novels and those he called his "entertainments," though given the complexity of the man and his work it wasn't always easy for readers to draw the distinction. Probably Michael Connelly would be the last to compare himself with Greene, but he, too, writes at differing levels of seriousness. If at first encounter he seems primarily an exceptionally accomplished writer of crime novels, at closer examination he is also a mordant and knowing chronicler of the world in which crime takes place, i.e., our world. Three years ago, within the space of only a few months, Connelly published two novels notable for the serious business underlying the entertainment. The first, The Closers, published in May 2005, found his noted Los Angeles police detective Harry Bosch trying to solve a "cold case" and thus trying to bring justice to victims on whom the law has turned its back. Then, in October of the same year, he published The Lincoln Lawyer, his first novel told from a lawyer's point of view, about an ambulance chaser named Mickey Haller, who, in the course of pursuing a lucrative case, finds himself seeking justice for a man he believes he failed to represent fairly when his case was being heard. Now, in The Brass Verdict, Connelly brings Bosch and Haller together for the first time. Though the novel has some serious things to say about the workings, and occasional failures, of the jury system, it is primarily an entertainment, and more than welcome purely as such. It's narrated by Mickey, a criminal-defense lawyer who is just coming off a year's self-imposed sabbatical -- he'd been shot in the gut and then had become addicted to painkillers in various forms -- and plans to ease slowly back into his practice. He's no K Street lawyer, as he tells a young man he takes on as his driver: "I haven't had an office since I left the Public Defenders Office twelve years ago. My car is my office. I've got two other Lincolns just like this one. I keep them in rotation. Each one's got a printer, a fax and I've got a wireless card in my computer. Anything I have to do in an office I can do back here while I'm on the road to the next place. There are more than forty courthouses spread across L.A. County. Being mobile is the best way to do business." Mickey's hopes of easing back in are quickly deep-sixed when a lawyer he's known slightly, Jerry Vincent, is found murdered in his car. He and Vincent had worked the occasional case together but hadn't been close. Still, Mickey is called into the office of the chief judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court and informed that Vincent "filed a motion with the court ten years ago that allowed for the transfer of his practice to you should he become incapacitated or deceased." Most of the 31 active cases in Vincent's file are minor stuff, but one is huge: "Walter Elliot . . . was the chairman/owner of Archway Pictures and a very powerful man in Hollywood. He had been charged with murdering his wife and her lover in a fit of rage after discovering them together in a Malibu beach house. The case had all sorts of connections to sex and celebrity and was drawing wide media attention. It had been a publicity machine for Vincent and now it would go up for grabs." Obviously, Mickey would love to have the case, but first he has to persuade Elliot -- who most emphatically is not a nice man -- to take him on. Once he does, Mickey is off and running. One of the people he runs into is Bosch, who is back on the active force and investigating Vincent's murder. Bosch wants access to Vincent's past and present case files because he believes the murderer was a client who'd crossed swords with him, but Mickey refuses on the grounds that to release the information would violate lawyer/client confidentiality. Bosch has 33 years on the force and is "a man on a mission" to seek justice wherever he can find it. He's a tough cop and an honest one, and there are angry sparks between him and Mickey from the moment they first meet. Mickey would just as soon have nothing to do with Harry -- Connelly's faithful readers don't have to be told that his real name is Hieronymus, "like the painter" -- but there's a problem: The deeper both men dig into Vincent's past, the more suspicions are raised. Vincent had received a lot of money, presumably from Elliot, and much of it -- $100,000, to be precise -- had disappeared. Mickey says Vincent claimed that "he needed the money to buy a boat and that if he made the deal in cash, he would get the best deal and save a lot of money," to which Harry replies: "There is no boat. The story was a lie." Vincent "bought something," Harry says, "and your client Walter Elliot probably knows what it was" -- something, for starters, like a potential juror. "You should take it as a warning, Counselor," Harry continues. When Mickey scoffs, he says, "His lawyer got killed, not him. Think about it. And remember, that little trickle on the back of your neck and running down your spine? That's the feeling you get when you know you have to look over your shoulder. When you know you're in danger." Mickey doesn't want to be scared, but as things unfold it appears he doesn't have much choice. One of those things is, how much -- if at all -- can he trust his client? Walter Elliot loudly and frequently proclaims his innocence and insists he wants a speedy trial to clear his name as rapidly as possibly, but though Mickey wants to believe him, experience teaches him to be cautious: "Over the years I had represented and been in the company of a couple dozen killers. The one rule is that there are no rules. They come in all sizes and shapes, rich and poor, humble and arrogant, regretful and cold to the bone. The percentages told me that it was most likely Elliot was a killer. That he had calmly dispatched his wife and her lover and arrogantly thought he could and would get away with it. But there was nothing about him on first meeting that told me one way or the other for sure. And that's the way it always was." If you're beginning to get a whiff of the O.J. Simpson case, well, that's pretty obviously how Connelly planned it. Not merely is the accused murderer a Los Angeles celebrity and the victims his wife and her lover, but Connelly drops in the occasional teasing reference as well. When Elliot blusters in court that "the sooner Mr. Haller gets to prove my innocence to the world, the better," Mickey dismisses it as "O.J. 101," and when another lawyer offers to pitch in and help, Mickey tells him: "He wants only one lawyer at the table. . . . He said no dream team." But all of that is just a little juice on the side; the main story is strictly Connelly's. The essence of it is this, as Mickey puts it: "I was defending a man I believed was innocent of the murders he was charged with but complicit in the reason they had occurred. I had a sleeper on the jury whose placement was directly related to the murder of my predecessor. And I had a detective watching over me whom I was holding back on and couldn't be sure was considering my safety ahead of his own desire to break open the case." Yet how does Mickey feel? "I felt like a guy flipping a three-hundred-pound sled in midair. It might not be a sport but it was dangerous as hell and it did what I hadn't been able to do in more than a year's time. It shook off the rust and put the charge back in my blood." Mickey is pumped, and, take my word for it, you will be too. Even though the way it ends is just a wee bit contrived, it's still a terrific ride.
Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Critics were pleased to see two of Michael Connelly's protagonists—the relatively new Mickey Haller and world-weary homicide detective Harry Bosch—come together for the first time. They agreed that while this union of sorts could have been cliched, it succeeded for the most part by adding a new layer—the evolution of a relationship forged by protagonists of different series—to Connelly's oeuvre. Haller's presence adds a lighter tone to the story, which balances Bosch's darker, more ruminative outlook. Both play against each other nicely as Connelly writes at once a police procedural and a captivating legal thriller. The Washington Post called The Brass Verdict primarily entertainment, with deeper undertones—just right for Connelly fans.
Copyright 2008 Bookmarks Publishing LLC

Starred Review. Bestseller Connelly delivers one of his most intricate plots to date in his 20th book, a beautifully executed crime thriller. When L.A. lawyer Mickey Haller, last seen in The Lincoln Lawyer (2005), inherits the practice and caseload of a fellow defense attorney, Jerry Vincent, who's been murdered, the high-profile double-homicide case against famed Hollywood producer Walter Elliot, accused of shooting his wife and her alleged lover, takes top priority. As Haller scrambles to build a defense, he butts heads with LAPD Det. Harry Bosch, the stalwart hero of Connelly's long-running series (The Black Echo, etc.), who's working Vincent's murder. When Haller realizes that the Elliot affair is bigger than simply a jealous husband killing his cheating wife, he and Bosch grudgingly agree to work together to solve what could be the biggest case in both their careers. Bosch might have met his match in the wily Haller, and readers will delight in their sparring. 10-city author tour. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

*Starred Review* It hasn’t gone well for L.A. lawyer Mickey Haller since the events described in The Lincoln Lawyer (2005). The recovery from being shot was slow, and the addiction to prescription drugs was worse than the recovery. But Haller has kicked the pills and is ready to practice law again when his friend and fellow attorney Jerry Vincent is murdered, and Mickey inherits all Vincent’s cases, including a career-maker: the trial of a studio executive accused of killing his wife and her lover. Quickly, Mickey realizes he’s caught in the middle: defending the mogul requires concealing facts that could help solve the Vincent murder. OK, Mickey’s used to playing fast and loose with the cops, but the investigating officer, Harry Bosch, knows when he’s being played. Careful Connelly readers will know that there’s a connection between the author’s two heroes, Bosch and Haller, even though this is the first time the two costarred together (see The Black Light, 1993). Connelly plays the dueling characters off against one another effectively, especially for those familiar with the previous books, but it isn’t all about backstory. Like Lincoln Lawyer, this is a fine legal thriller, full of both electric courtroom scenes and fascinating behind-the-scenes stuff about the business of lawyering. Connelly is justly celebrated for his characters and his ability to create mood from the sights and sounds of L.A., but he’s also a terrific plotter, and that skill is in high relief here. Essential for fans; a great read for anybody. --Bill Ott

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Brass Verdict

A Novel By Michael Connelly

Little, Brown

Copyright © 2008 Hieronymus, Inc.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-316-16629-4

Chapter One

Everybody lies.

Cops lie. Lawyers lie. Witnesses lie. The victims lie.

A trial is a contest of lies. And everybody in the courtroom knows this. The judge knows this. Even the jury knows this. They come into the building knowing they will be lied to. They take their seats in the box and agree to be lied to.

The trick if you are sitting at the defense table is to be patient. To wait. Not for just any lie. But for the one you can grab on to and forge like hot iron into a sharpened blade. You then use that blade to rip the case open and spill its guts out on the floor.

That's my job, to forge the blade. To sharpen it. To use it without mercy or conscience. To be the truth in a place where everybody lies.

Chapter Two

I was in the fourth day of trial in Department 109 in the downtown Criminal Courts Building when I got the lie that became the blade that ripped the case open. My client, Barnett Woodson, was riding two murder charges all the way to the steel-gray room in San Quentin where they serve you Jesus juice direct through the arm.

Woodson, a twenty-seven-year-old drug dealer from Compton, was accused of robbing and killing two college students from Westwood. They had wanted to buy cocaine from him. He decided instead to take their money and kill them both with a sawed-off shotgun. Or so the prosecution said. It was a black-on-white crime and that made things bad enough for Woodson - especially coming just four months after the riots that had torn the city apart. But what made his situation even worse was that the killer had attempted to hide the crime by weighing down the two bodies and dropping them into the Hollywood Reservoir. They stayed down for four days before popping to the surface like apples in a barrel. Rotten apples. The idea of dead bodies moldering in the reservoir that was a primary source of the city's drinking water caused a collective twist in the community's guts. When Woodson was linked by phone records to the dead men and arrested, the public outrage directed toward him was almost palpable. The District Attorney's Office promptly announced it would seek the death penalty.

The case against Woodson, however, wasn't all that palpable. It was constructed largely of circumstantial evidence - the phone records - and the testimony of witnesses who were criminals themselves. And state's witness Ronald Torrance sat front and center in this group. He claimed that Woodson confessed the killings to him.

Torrance had been housed on the same floor of the Men's Central Jail as Woodson. Both men were kept in a high-power module that contained sixteen single-prisoner cells on two tiers that opened onto a dayroom. At the time, all sixteen prisoners in the module were black, following the routine but questionable jail procedure of "segregating for safety," which entailed dividing prisoners according to race and gang affiliation to avoid confrontations and violence. Torrance was awaiting trial on robbery and aggravated assault charges stemming from his involvement in looting during the riots. High-power detainees had six a.m. to six p.m. access to the dayroom, where they ate and played cards at tables and otherwise interacted under the watchful eyes of guards in an overhead glass booth. According to Torrance, it was at one of these tables that my client had confessed to killing the two Westside boys.

The prosecution went out of its way to make Torrance presentable and believable to the jury, which had only three black members. He was given a shave, his hair was taken out of cornrows and trimmed short and he was dressed in a pale blue suit with no tie when he arrived in court on the fourth day of Woodson's trial. In direct testimony elicited by Jerry Vincent, the prosecutor, Torrance described the conversation he allegedly had with Woodson one morning at one of the picnic tables. Woodson not only confessed to the killings, he said, but furnished Torrance with many of the telling details of the murders. The point made clear to the jury was that these were details that only the true killer would know.

During the testimony, Vincent kept Torrance on a tight leash with long questions designed to elicit short answers. The questions were overloaded to the point of being leading but I didn't bother objecting, even when Judge Companioni looked at me with raised eyebrows, practically begging me to jump in. But I didn't object, because I wanted the counterpoint. I wanted the jury to see what the prosecution was doing. When it was my turn, I was going to let Torrance run with his answers while I hung back and waited for the blade.

Vincent finished his direct at eleven a.m. and the judge asked me if I wanted to take an early lunch before I began my cross. I told him no, I didn't need or want a break. I said it like I was disgusted and couldn't wait another hour to get at the man on the stand. I stood up and took a big, thick file and a legal pad with me to the lectern.

"Mr. Torrance, my name is Michael Haller. I work for the Public Defenders Office and represent Barnett Woodson. Have we met before?"

"No, sir."

"I didn't think so. But you and the defendant, Mr. Woodson, you two go back a long way, correct?"

Torrance gave an "aw, shucks" smile. But I had done the due diligence on him and I knew exactly who I was dealing with. He was thirty- two years old and had spent a third of his life in jails and prisons. His schooling had ended in the fourth grade when he stopped going to school and no parent seemed to notice or care. Under the state's threestrike law, he was facing the lifetime achievement award if convicted of charges he robbed and pistol-whipped the female manager of a coin laundry. The crime had been committed during three days of rioting and looting that ripped through the city after the not-guilty verdicts were announced in the trial of four police officers accused of the excessive beating of Rodney King, a black motorist pulled over for driving erratically. In short, Torrance had good reason to help the state take down Barnett Woodson.

"Well, we go back a few months is all," Torrance said. "To high-power."

"Did you say 'higher power'?" I asked, playing dumb. "Are you talking about a church or some sort of religious connection?"

"No, high-power module. In county."

"So you're talking about jail, correct?"

"That's right."

"So you're telling me that you didn't know Barnett Woodson before that?"

I asked the question with surprise in my voice.

"No, sir. We met for the first time in the jail."

I made a note on the legal pad as if this were an important concession.

"So then, let's do the math, Mr. Torrance. Barnett Woodson was transferred into the high- power module where you were already residing on the fifth of September earlier this year. Do you remember that?"

"Yeah, I remember him coming in, yeah."

"And why were you there in high- power?"

Vincent stood and objected, saying I was covering ground he had already trod in direct testimony. I argued that I was looking for a fuller explanation of Torrance's incarceration, and Judge Companioni allowed me the leeway. He told Torrance to answer the question.

"Like I said, I got a count of assault and one of robbery."

"And these alleged crimes took place during the riots, is that correct?"

With the anti-police climate permeating the city's minority communities since even before the riots, I had fought during jury selection to get as many blacks and browns on the panel as I could. But here was a chance to work on the five white jurors the prosecution had been able to get by me. I wanted them to know that the man the prosecution was hanging so much of its case on was one of those responsible for the images they saw on their television sets back in May.

"Yeah, I was out there like everybody else," Torrance answered. "Cops get away with too much in this town, you ask me."

I nodded like I agreed.

"And your response to the injustice of the verdicts in the Rodney King beating case was to go out and rob a sixty- two-year-old woman and knock her unconscious with a steel trash can? Is that correct, sir?"

Torrance looked over at the prosecution table and then past Vincent to his own lawyer, sitting in the first row of the gallery. Whether or not they had earlier rehearsed a response to this question, his legal team couldn't help Torrance now. He was on his own.

"I didn't do that," he finally said.

"You're innocent of the crime you are charged with?"

"That's right."

"What about looting? You committed no crimes during the riots?"

After a pause and another glance at his attorney, Torrance said, "I take the fifth on that."

As expected. I then took Torrance through a series of questions designed so that he had no choice but to incriminate himself or refuse to answer under the protections of the Fifth Amendment. Finally, after he took the nickel six times, the judge grew weary of the point being made over and over and prodded me back to the case at hand. I reluctantly complied.

"All right, enough about you, Mr. Torrance," I said. "Let's get back to you and Mr. Woodson. You knew the details of this double-murder case before you even met Mr. Woodson in lockup?"

"No, sir."

"Are you sure? It got a lot of attention."

"I been in jail, man."

"They don't have television or newspapers in jail?"

"I don't read no papers and the module's TV been broke since I got there. We made a fuss and they said they'd fix it but they ain't fixed shit."

The judge admonished Torrance to check his language and the witness apologized. I moved on.

"According to the jail's records, Mr. Woodson arrived in the high-power module on the fifth of September and, according to the state's discovery material, you contacted the prosecution on October second to report his alleged confession. Does that sound right to you?"

"Yeah, that sounds right."

"Well, not to me, Mr. Torrance. You are telling this jury that a man accused of a double murder and facing the possible death penalty confessed to a man he had known for less than four weeks?"

Torrance shrugged before answering.

"That's what happened."

"So you say. What will you get from the prosecution if Mr. Woodson is convicted of these crimes?"

"I don't know. Nobody has promised me nothing."

"With your prior record and the charges you currently face, you are looking at more than fifteen years in prison if you're convicted, correct?"

"I don't know about any of that."

"You don't?"

"No, sir. I let my lawyer handle all that."

"He hasn't told you that if you don't do something about this, you might go to prison for a long, long time?"

"He hasn't told me none of that."

"I see. What have you asked the prosecutor for in exchange for your testimony?"

"Nothing. I don't want nothing."

"So then, you are testifying here because you believe it is your duty as a citizen, is that correct?"

The sarcasm in my voice was unmistakable.

"That's right," Torrance responded indignantly.

I held the thick file up over the lectern so he could see it.

"Do you recognize this file, Mr. Torrance?"

"No. Not that I recall, I don't."

"You sure you don't remember seeing it in Mr. Woodson's cell?"

"Never been in his cell."

"Are you sure that you didn't sneak in there and look through his discovery file while Mr. Woodson was in the dayroom or in the shower or maybe in court sometime?"

"No, I did not."

"My client had many of the investigative documents relating to his prosecution in his cell. These contained several of the details you testified to this morning. You don't think that is suspicious?"

Torrance shook his head.

"No. All I know is that he sat there at the table and told me what he'd done. He was feeling poorly about it and opened up to me. It ain't my fault people open up to me."

I nodded as if sympathetic to the burden Torrance carried as a man others confided in - especially when it came to double murders.

"Of course not, Mr. Torrance. Now, can you tell the jury exactly what he said to you? And don't use the shorthand you used when Mr. Vincent was asking the questions. I want to hear exactly what my client told you. Give us his words, please."

Torrance paused as if to probe his memory and compose his thoughts.

"Well," he finally said, "we were sittin' there, the both of us by ourselves, and he just started talkin' about feelin' bad about what he'd done. I asked him, 'What'd you do?' and he told me about that night he killed the two fellas and how he felt pretty rough about it."

The truth is short. Lies are long. I wanted to get Torrance talking in long form, something Vincent had successfully avoided. Jailhouse snitches have something in common with all con men and professional liars. They seek to hide the con in misdirection and banter. They wrap cotton around their lies. But in all of that fluff you often find the key to revealing the big lie.

Vincent objected again, saying the witness had already answered the questions I was asking and I was simply badgering him at this point.

"Your Honor," I responded, "this witness is putting a confession in my client's mouth. As far as the defense is concerned, this is the case right here. The court would be remiss if it did not allow me to fully explore the content and context of such damaging testimony."

Judge Companioni was nodding in agreement before I finished the last sentence. He overruled Vincent's objection and told me to proceed. I turned my attention back to the witness and spoke with impatience in my voice.

"Mr. Torrance, you are still summarizing. You claim Mr. Woodson confessed to the murders. So then, tell the jury what he said to you. What were the exact words he said to you when he confessed to this crime?"

Torrance nodded as if he were just then realizing what I was asking for.

"The first thing he said to me was 'Man, I feel bad.' And I said, 'For what, my brother?' He said he kept thinking about those two guys. I didn't know what he was talking about 'cause, like I said, I hadn't heard nothin' about the case, you know? So I said, 'What two guys?' and he said, 'The two niggers I dumped in the reservoir.' I asked what it was all about and he told me about blasting them both with a shorty and wrappin' them up in chicken wire and such. He said, 'I made one bad mistake' and I asked him what it was. He said, 'I shoulda taken a knife and opened up their bellies so they wouldn't end up floatin' to the top the way they did.' And that was what he told me."

In my peripheral vision I had seen Vincent flinch in the middle of Torrance's long answer. And I knew why. I carefully moved in with the blade.

"Did Mr. Woodson use that word? He called the victims 'niggers'?"

"Yeah, he said that."

I hesitated as I worked on the phrasing of the next question. I knew Vincent was waiting to object if I gave him the opening. I could not ask Torrance to interpret. I couldn't use the word "why" when it came to Woodson's meaning or motivation. That was objectionable.

"Mr. Torrance, in the black community the word 'nigger' could mean different things, could it not?"

"'Spose."

"Is that a yes?"

"Yes."

"The defendant is African- American, correct?"

Torrance laughed.

"Looks like it to me."

"As are you, correct, sir?"

Torrance started to laugh again.

"Since I was born," he said.

The judge tapped his gavel once and looked at me.

"Mr. Haller, is this really necessary?"

"I apologize, Your Honor."

"Please move on."

"Mr. Torrance, when Mr. Woodson used that word, as you say he did, did it shock you?"

Torrance rubbed his chin as he thought about the question. Then he shook his head.

"Not really."

"Why weren't you shocked, Mr. Torrance?"

"I guess it's 'cause I hear it all a' time, man."

"From other black men?"

"That's right. I heard it from white folks, too."

"Well, when fellow black men use that word, like you say Mr. Woodson did, who are they talking about?"

Vincent objected, saying that Torrance could not speak for what other men were talking about. Companioni sustained the objection and I took a moment to rework the path to the answer I wanted.

"Okay, Mr. Torrance," I finally said. "Let's talk only about you, then, okay? Do you use that word on occasion?"

"I think I have."

"All right, and when you have used it, who were you refer ring to?"

Torrance shrugged.

"Other fellas."

"Other black men?"

"That's right."

"Have you ever on occasion referred to white men as niggers?"

Torrance shook his head.

"No."

"Okay, so then, what did you take the meaning to be when Barnett Woodson described the two men who were dumped in the reservoir as niggers?"

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Brass Verdictby Michael Connelly Copyright © 2008 by Hieronymus, Inc.. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0316166294
• ISBN 13: 9780316166294
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 432