Sunday, December 13, 2009

Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly *****

The Brass Verdict opens with "Everyone lies." Michael Haller, attorney and alcoholic, leads with this caveat emptor as he returns to work as a defense attorney with a high-profile case: the head of a movie studio accused of murdering his wife and her lover just weeks after her prenup vested and she had a right to half his substantial assets. Michael Connelly delivers up a fast moving mystery with plenty of twists and turns, a few more murders, and everything neatly resolved at the end, but not the way you might have suspected. This is all done the lazy deus ex machina employed by many lesser writers.

The only slow part was in the middle where too much time was spent on trial and legal mechanics which will certainly be tedious and cliched to any regular reader of legal thrillers, and something that's been done so well by John Grisham that all other writers should be cautioned before they attempt it.

In the end, with everything resolved, we see: "Everybody lies."

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