Michael Connelly: The Lincoln Lawyer

Maggie McPherson and I are attempting to mend our wounds, too. She brings my daughter to visit me every weekend and often stays for the day. We sit on the deck and talk. We both know our daughter will be what saves us. I can no longer hold anger for being used as bait for a killer. I think Maggie no longer holds anger for the choices I have made.

The California bar looked at all of my actions and sent me on a vacation to Cuba. That’s what defense pros call being suspended for conduct unbecoming an attorney. CUBA. I was shelved for ninety days. It was a bullshit finding. They could prove no specific ethical violations in regard to Corliss, so they hit me for borrowing a gun from my client Earl Briggs. I got lucky there. It was not a stolen or unregistered gun. It belonged to Earl’s father, so my ethical infraction was minor.

I didn’t bother contesting the bar reprimand or appealing the suspension. After taking a bullet in the gut, ninety days on the shelf didn’t look so bad to me. I served the suspension during my recovery, mostly in a bathrobe while watching Court TV.

Neither the bar nor the police found ethical or criminal violation on my part in the killing of Mary Alice Windsor. She entered my home with a stolen weapon. She shot first and I shot last. From a block away Lankford and Sobel watched her take that first shot at my front door. Self-defense, cut and dried. But what has not been so clear-cut are the feelings I have for what I did. I wanted to avenge my friend Raul Levin, but I didn’t want to see it done in blood. I am a killer now. Being state sanctioned only tempers slightly the feelings that come with that.

All investigations and official findings aside, I think now that in the whole matter of Menendez and Roulet I was guilty of conduct unbecoming myself. And the penalty for that is harsher than anything the state or the bar could ever throw at me. No matter. I will carry all of it with me as I go back to work. My work. I know my place in this world and on the first day of court next year I will pull the Lincoln out of the garage, get back on the road and go looking for the underdog. I don’t know where I will go or what cases will be mine. I just know I will be healed and ready to stand once again in the world without truth.

This novel was inspired by a chance meeting and conversation with attorney David Ogden many years ago at a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball game. For that, the author will always be grateful. Though the character and exploits of Mickey Haller are fictitious and wholly of the author’s imagination, this story could not have been written without the tremendous help and guidance of attorneys Daniel F. Daly and Roger O. Mills, both of whom allowed me to watch them work and strategize cases and were tireless in their efforts to make sure the world of criminal defense law was depicted accurately in these pages. Any errors or exaggerations in the law or the practice of it are purely the fault of the author.

Superior Court Judge Judith Champagne and her staff in Department 124 in the Criminal Courts Building in downtown Los Angeles allowed the author complete access to her courtroom, chambers and holding cells and answered any question posed. To the judge, Joe, Marianne, and Michelle a great debt of thanks is owed.

Also of great help to the author and contribution to the story were Asya Muchnick, Michael Pietsch, Jane Wood, Terrill Lee Lankford, Jerry Hooten, David Lambkin, Lucas Foster, Carolyn Chriss, and Pamela Marshall.

Last but not least, the author wishes to thank Shannon Byrne, Mary Elizabeth Capps, Jane Davis, Joel Gotler, Philip Spitzer, Lukas Ortiz, and Linda Connelly for their help and support during the writing of this story.

Michael Connelly is a former journalist and the author of the bestselling series of Harry Bosch novels, including The Closers and The Narrows, along with the bestselling novels Chasing the Dime, Void Moon, Blood Work, and The Poet. Connelly has won numerous awards for his journalism and novels, including an Edgar Award. He is the former president of Mystery Writers of America.