The Fifth Witness

When we finally got to the trial portion of this novel (the rest is just foreplay, anyway, right?) I found myself thinking–could Perry Mason have handled this D.A.? (and conversely, what fun it would be to watch Hamilton Burger try to deal with Mickey [and yes, I remembered Burger's name despite it being 2 decades since I've read an [author:Erle Stanley Gardner 10214] novel, don't ask how]). That's just how good Haller is–at the end of the day, he's better than the Gold Standard.A tense mystery, dazzling courtroom tactics (on both sides), a client and supporting cast that add rather than detract from the main characters and an ending you really can't see coming. That's just the kind of writer Michael Connelly is, a guy at the top of his game.I'm not sure that I'm totally on board with the direction that Mickey is headed in at the end of the book, but I'm confident it'll take no more than 15 pages of the next installment for Connelly to convince me.

This series doesn't get as much attention as the Bosch series, but it should. Haller is flawed, creative, and struggling. In short, brilliant writing. I wish they made more of these into movies.

I feel like I should give this book a higher rating but honestly I feel like Mikey had a really weak and towards the end a nonsensical defense that in my opinion wasn't very effective. The minor twist at the end was nice if not totally unpredictable but aside from that, these books are standard affair which I still enjoyed and I'm moving on to the next in the series.