They’re believeable and and fun to watch in love to hate them sort of way. The antagonists of the novel, once they reveal themselves, are also quite interesting. Mickey isn’t the only great character in “The Gods of Guilt.” We also get to spend some time with some great familiar characters like his imposing investigator Cisco, and his loyal driver Earl, but we also meet some interesting new new faces like young lawyer Jennifer Aronson, the newest recruit to the Michael Haller and Associates Law Firm. So “The Gods of Guilt” is a great character study of a deeply flawed, but cunning and brilliant lawyer who has to beat both his personal demons and the evidence that’s stacked against his client. It’s fascinating watching him deal with that damage and try to come to terms with who he is and what he does, and of course it’s also fascinating to watch him do what he does best. We don’t find immediately find out why, but when we do it’s a pretty shocking reveal and it’s clear that Haller is a haunted and damaged man. When we meet him in “The Gods of Guilt” though he’s still a defense attorney. When we last saw Mickey in “The Fifth Witness” it looked like he was going to turn over a new leaf and run for the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office. It’s been a couple years since we’ve seen Mickey though and I didn’t realize how much I missed him until I read Connelly’s latest book “The Gods of Guilt” which is hands down the best novel in the Lincoln Lawyer series and one of the best novels he’s ever written. I also enjoyed Mickey’s return appearances in the novels “The Brass Verdict”, “The Reversal”, and “The Fifth Witness”. I ended up liking the “Lincoln Lawyer” (the book where Mickey was introduced) though.

So I begrudgingly let the writer introduce me to a new protagonist, defense attorney Michael “Mickey” Haller, even though court room thrillers were not really my thing.

In 2005 I was a huge fan of Michael Connelly’s police procedurals starring LAPD detective Harry Bosch.

The gods of guilt book