The Gods of Guilt

I’ve done it again, jumped into a series either somewhere in the middle or with its latest book.  This time around, it’s book five (the latest) of Michael Connelly’s “Lincoln Lawyer” series, The Gods of Guilt, that sucked me in.  And I’m glad that it did.

“The Gods of Guilt” Connelly refers to in the book’s title are the twelve jurors that have the power to determine the ultimate fate of anyone whose guilt or innocence they have been charged with deciding.  And Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer himself, is going to need those gods to smile upon him big time if he is to have any chance of freeing his current client, a homosexual “computer pimp” accused of strangling one of his girls over the money she failed to pay him.    

Andre La Cosse is good at what he does – but what he does is not particularly legal.  The young man designs websites through which prostitutes disguising themselves as “escorts” advertise their services to potential customers.  He is so good at it, in fact, that new business sometimes comes to him via word-of-mouth.  La Cosse does takes his “electronic” pimping seriously and, when one of his girls turns up dead, he quickly becomes the likely suspect. 

Michael Connelly

Despite all the evidence pointing toward his client, Haller believes he is innocent.  And because the dead girl is someone he was once close to, the Lincoln Lawyer wants two things: to free his client and to find the real killer.  He will learn the hard way that, at least in this case, the good guys and the bad guys are not always where the “citizens” might expect to find them. 

The Gods of Guilt is a very fine courtroom procedural with plenty of action outside the courtroom, too.  This one is fun.