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The Brass Verdict
Michael Connelly
Little, Brown and Company 2008
Hardcover 432 pages

The Brass Verdict is the 20th Michael Connelly mystery novel. To mark the occasion, Connelly brings together Detective Harry Bosh and Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer. The Brass Verdict is a pretty good mystery but as it took me 4 days to read this one instead of the usual 1, counting the sleepless night, I am not sure it is his best. Kindle The Brass Verdict: A Novel (A Lincoln Lawyer Novel Book 2)

This mystery novel opens a year or so after the events in The Lincoln Lawyer. Mickey Haller has been laying low getting a monkey off his back. He is not quite ready to get back to business but has little choice when Jerry Vincent, a colleague, gets killed and he inherits a franchise case involving a studio boss accused of murder.

The detective investigating the colleague s murder is Harry Bosch. Bosch is keeping a close eye on Haller as he believes the murder is related to the franchise case Vincent was working on.

Haller has little to go on to defend the studio boss aside from a client who is very eager to go to trial and prove his innocence.

Bosch and Haller keep crossing paths as the detective keeps asking Haller for information and believes the Lincoln lawyer is not telling him everything he knows. Haller wants to help find Vincent’s killer but is bound by rules of law and confidentiality. This creates a rather tense relationship between Bosch and Haller even if the men have something in common.

By the way, I really hope the letter to booksellers that appeared in my galley copy of this new Connelly does not appear in the final hardcover version as it contains a hell of a spoiler.

If The Brass Verdict was by anyone else than Michael Connelly it would be a great mystery novel. Connelly’s readers are used to just a little bit better a story, a somewhat tighter narrative, and a tad wee bit more originally written reveal than what is in this one.

Is it unfair to expect Connelly to always top himself or at least keep the bar as high as he has set it in the past? Probably. Oh well.