The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly

Attorney Mickey Haller is one of Los Angeles' best defense attorneys.  He is known as the Lincoln Lawyer because he basically runs his practice from the back seat of his Lincoln Towncar.  He's found that is the most effective way of managing his business as he spends his days going from court to jails to meetings, rarely settling for very long.  He has staff who manage the practice; his ex-wife Lorna does the scheduling, billing and takes care of the paperwork, Earl is his driver and spends his days ferrying Mickey from place to place and he has Levin, his private investigator.  

Haller has just gotten a new client and he is excited about him both because he thinks the case will be an easy win and because the man's family is wealthy and can pay big bucks for Haller to represent him.  Louis Roulet has been arrested and charged with attempted rape and bodily harm on a woman.  The pictures of her injuries are horrendous and the police have recovered a knife belonging to Roulet and his prints are everywhere in her apartment.  It appears to be an open and shut case.

But Mickey isn't so sure.  Roulet seems like that rarest of cases, an innocent man.  He has an answer for everything; the woman approached him in a bar and gave him her address but when he arrived he was knocked out and when he came to the police had been called and he was arrested on the spot.  Who is telling the truth?

As the case progresses, Mickey and Levin find evidence that could clear his client but he starts to have misgivings.  Is the man really innocent or just more adept at hiding his guilt than other clients?  Soon other cases start to impinge on this one and it will take all of Haller's legal expertise to be sure that justice is done, both in this case and the others.

This is the first in the Lincoln Lawyer series.  Fans of Connelly's work know that it is later revealed that Haller is the half brother of Harry Bosch.  The plotting in this novel is tight and the surprises come quickly.  Readers get an inside look at what running a legal practice is really like from the inside along with an interesting set of cases that end satisfactorily.  This book is recommended for mystery readers, especially those interested in legal thrillers.