Stars: 5 out of 5
Pros: Compelling story populated by great characters
Cons: None
The Bottom Line:
Haller, Bosch team up
Take on tricky, twisty case
Will justice prevail?
The
After revisiting Mickey Haller last month, I was anxious to
move on to his next case. These books
about the Lincoln Lawyer are proving to be quite gripping even if they aren't
my normal choice. A recent family vacation
to Yosemite provided me the perfect
opportunity to listen to the unabridged audio version of The Reversal, and I was once again enthralled.
The second book about Mickey Haller featured author Michael
Connelly's other character, Harry Bosch, as a supporting character. Here, both of them take on lead rolls. I was worried that, since I have yet to read
a full book about Bosch, I might be a bit lost here, but that wasn't an issue
at all.
24 years ago, Jason Jessup kidnapped and killed a young
girl. Now, new DNA evidence has freed
him, but the LA County DA is going to retry him. In an effort to avoid any association with
some bad practices from the first trial, the DA asks Mickey Haller to cross
over from the defense and act as a special prosecutor. Mickey gets talked into taking the job on two
conditions - his ex-wife Maggie McPherson is his second chair, and his
half-brother Harry Bosch of the LAPD as his investigator.
The trio has a long, hard road ahead of them. After 24 years, some of the witnesses are
dead or hard to track down. Will they be
able to build a case that will put Jessup where he belongs?
This book is told is alternating chapters from both men's
point of view. The odd chapters give us
Haller's first person take on the story while the even chapters are from
Bosch's limited third person point of view.
It gives us a great view of the action and adds some interesting layers
to the book that I think would have been missing otherwise.
I was disappointed that some of the supporting characters
from the first two books about Mickey Haller were missing here. I'm sure fans of Harry Bosch will feel the
same way. On the other hand, we got to
know Maggie much better in this book, and I really like her. Speaking of liking, I like Bosch much more
after spending so much time with him in this book. He didn't fair so well in the last Mickey
Haller book, but now I'm interested in reading his novels as well.
The book is populated by a bunch of interesting characters
brought in just for this book. They
helped pull me into the case as well, and left me rooting for justice to prevail.
All these characters are in an engrossing story. The story takes several twists I didn't
expect (as well as a couple I did). The
result kept the miles flying by as I hoped to get just a little bit more
listened to before my next stop. Heck, I
was actually cheering at one point during the story. This includes the courtroom scenes, and there
are plenty of them here. By the time we
get there, we are so invested in the story that what happens is actually very
important to us.
The audio version I listened to is narrated by Peter
Giles. He does a great job giving us
voices for all the characters that make some of the dialogue heavy scenes easy
to follow.
Whether you listen via audio or read the novel yourself, I
recommend The Reversal. It's a great,
twisty read that will leave you wanting more books by this author.
More courtroom drama can be found in the rest of the Mickey Haller series. And more great mysteries can be found in the rest of the Harry Bosch series.
More courtroom drama can be found in the rest of the Mickey Haller series. And more great mysteries can be found in the rest of the Harry Bosch series.
I absolutely love Connelly's work, especially the Bosch series. Bosch and Haller in one sitting? Pure bliss. Thanks for the great review. :-)
ReplyDeleteThe Bosch books are definitely on my list now. No idea when exactly I will get to them, but I do hope to do so sooner rather than later.
DeleteJust now got to this one - great read as you say. I'm reading all Connelly's books in the order he wrote them regardless of character, so I have all of Bosch's past history that we've been given up to this book, including the gripping story of the death of his daughter's mother. 5 GR stars all.
ReplyDelete