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GREAT ACCLAIM FOR MICHAEL CONNELLY’STHE LINCOLN LAWYER

“The author’s new tactics are what makes this book asuccess. Mr. Connelly hurtles into the realm of thelegal thriller with excitingly renewed energy and a fullbag of tricks. Entertaining as it is during the investiga-tion phase, this book goes up a notch when the court-room conniving takes over.”

—New York Times

“Brave and intensely gripping . . . Connelly has steppedup to the plate in the overflowing ballpark of legalthrillers and blasted a grand slam his first time at bat.”

—Chicago Tribune

“[This] intricate, fast-moving tale barrels along . . .Beware of picking up THE LINCOLN LAWYER. Youwon’t want to put it down until you’ve navigated itsrapids to the end.”

—Los Angeles Times

“Fascinating . . . a compelling mystery that has moresudden turns than Mulholland Drive.”

—Entertainment Weekly

“Fast-moving with unexpected twists . . . All thatConnelly readers have come to expect.”

—Denver Post

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“Outstanding . . . Smokes with intrigue.”—New York Daily News

“Heart-stopping twists and topflight storytelling.”—Publishers Weekly

“An intricately plotted courthouse thriller . . . Thetricks of Haller’s trade will fascinate readers new tothe genre, and the sophisticated storytelling will dazzleeven judicial-thriller junkies.”

—People

“The world in which Mickey Haller works isn’t apretty place. Michael Connelly knows it all too welland writes about it with chilling authority . . . He’s nota ‘genre’ novelist but the real thing, taking us into apart of the real America that most of our novelistsnever visit.”

—Washington Post Book World

“A gripping read, one you can’t put down . . . Findyourself a beach. You have the perfect book.”

—Newsday

“A taut, elaborate plot and quirky, well-drawn charac-ters . . . As the plot heats up, THE LINCOLNLAWYER becomes a page-turner.”

—Miami Herald

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“A thrilling ride with lots of twists and turns.”—Dallas Morning News

“Mr. Connelly’s THE LINCOLN LAWYER is a legalthriller, and about as good as it gets . . . [An] impecca-ble plot . . . witty and quotable dialogue, and momentsof such poignancy and humanity . . . A great book.”

—New York Sun

“All the right stuff: a sinuous plot, crisp dialogue, anda roster of reprehensible characters.”

—Booklist (starred review)

“Achieves a new standard . . . Briskly paced, THELINCOLN LAWYER illustrates the power of legalthrillers by simultaneously delving into ethics, mediascrutiny, and the politics of the law. Connelly alsoworks in the tenets of evil . . . Proves that Connelly isguilty of producing some of the best crime fictionaround.”

—Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

“Connelly does a first-rate job . . . THE LINCOLNLAWYER takes off like a bullet train.”

—St. Petersburg Times

“Fast-paced with hefty doses of doubt, peril, and noirkinks in the plot . . . Mickey Haller [is] smart andfunny.”

—Sunday Oregonian

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“Connelly proves he can handle even the legal thrillergenre with his intricate and cynical look into the crim-inal justice system.”

—Library Journal

“A steamroller plot . . . Mickey is a terrific character.”—Seattle Times

“A rollicking read . . . testament to Connelly’s talentfor storytelling . . . Connelly scores big in his firstattempt at a legal thriller.”

—Montreal Gazette

“A new ride for Connelly . . . His writing is superb, hisdialogue vivid. His depictions of deceptions small andlarge, to oneself and others, are part of what makes this new work so compelling.”

—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“Michael Connelly, who first captured legions ofreaders a decade ago when he launched the HarryBosch series, has done the impossible—created a char-acter who is just as flawed, tortured, and beguiling . . .THE LINCOLN LAWYER moves at a mesmerizingpace, culminating in a solution that would have madeMachiavelli proud.”

—Orlando Sentinel

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“The same sort of authenticity that marks the HarryBosch novels can be found in THE LINCOLNLAWYER . . . His narrative is crisp, with the types ofdetails that outsiders wouldn’t know and insiders willappreciate . . . Connelly is as good as it gets in therealm of crime stories.”

—Columbus Dispatch

“Great entertainment from a true master.”—Mirror (UK)

“In THE LINCOLN LAWYER, Connelly has built aplot which ticks like a Swiss watch, written some ofthe best courtroom scenes in crime fiction, and createda cast of wholly believable characters.”

—Birmingham Post

“Cunning . . . well thought-out . . . a must-read.”—Chattanooga Times Free Press

“Is Michael Connelly one of the best mystery writersaround? This guy just produces winner after winner,and the latest, THE LINCOLN LAWYER, is no dif-ferent.”

—Ottawa Sun

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Books by Michael Connelly

Featuring Harry BoschThe Black Echo City of BonesThe Black Ice Lost LightThe Concrete Blonde The NarrowsThe Last Coyote The ClosersTrunk Music Echo ParkAngels Flight The OverlookA Darkness More Than Night Nine Dragons

Featuring Mickey HallerThe Lincoln Lawyer

Featuring Harry Bosch and Mickey HallerThe Brass Verdict

The Reversal

Featuring Jack McEvoyThe Poet

The Scarecrow

Other NovelsBlood WorkVoid Moon

Chasing the Dime

AnthologiesMystery Writers of America Presents Blue Religion:New Stories about Cops, Criminals, and the Chase

NonfictionCRIME BEAT: A Decade of Covering Cops and Killers

ATTENTION CORPORATIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS:Most Hachette Book Group books are available

at quantity discounts with bulk purchase for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information,

please call or write:

Special Markets Department, Hachette Book Group237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Telephone: 1-800-222-6747 Fax: 1-800-477-5925

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THE

LINCOLNLAWYER

MICHAELCONNELLY

NEW YORK BOSTON

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If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that this bookmay have been stolen property and reported as “unsold and destroyed” to thepublisher. In such case neither the author nor the publisher has received anypayment for this “stripped book.”

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents arethe product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resem-blance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

The author wishes to acknowledge the following, whose lyrics are quoted inthis book: “To Live and Die In L.A.” Words and music by Quincy Jones III,Val Young, and Tupac Shakur copyright © 1996 Deep Technology Music,Music of Windswept and Songs of Universal, Inc. and Val Young Publishing.All rights for Deep Technology Music administered by Music of Windswept.All rights reserved. Used by permission; “To Live and Die in L.A.” by TupacAmaru Shakur, Quincy Delight Jones III, Val Young © 1996 by MusicCorporation of America/Joshua’s Dream Music. All rights administered bySongs of Universal, Inc./BMI. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2005 by Hieronymus, Inc.Excerpt from The Fifth Witness copyright © 2011 by Hieronymus, Inc.All rights reserved. Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmit-ted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system,without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Grand Central PublishingHachette Book Group237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

Grand Central Publishing is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.The Grand Central Publishing name and logo is a trademark of HachetteBook Group, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America

The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are notowned by the publisher.

Originally published in hardcover by Little, Brown and CompanyFirst International mass market edition: March 2006First United States mass market edition: July 2006First Media Tie-in edition: February 2011

1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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THIS IS FOR DANIEL F. DALYAND ROGER O . MILLS

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There is no client as scary as an innocent man.

— J. Michael Haller, criminal defense attorney,Los Angeles, 1962

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PART ONE— Pretrial Intervention

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Monday, March 7

ONE

The morning air off the Mojave in late winter is asclean and crisp as you’ll ever breathe in Los AngelesCounty. It carries the taste of promise on it. When it

starts blowing in like that I like to keep a window open inmy office. There are a few people who know this routineof mine, people like Fernando Valenzuela. The bonds-man, not the baseball pitcher. He called me as I was com-ing into Lancaster for a nine o’clock calendar call. Hemust have heard the wind whistling in my cell phone.

“Mick,” he said, “you up north this morning?”“At the moment,” I said as I put the window up to hear

him better. “You got something?”“Yeah, I got something. I think I got a franchise player

here. But his first appearance is at eleven. Can you makeit back down in time?”

Valenzuela has a storefront office on Van Nuys Boule-vard a block from the civic center, which includes twocourthouses and the Van Nuys jail. He calls his businessLiberty Bail Bonds. His phone number, in red neon onthe roof of his establishment, can be seen from the high-


power wing on the third floor of the jail. His number isscratched into the paint on the wall next to every payphone on every other ward in the jail.

You could say his name is also permanently scratchedonto my Christmas list. At the end of the year I give a canof salted nuts to everybody on it. Planters holiday mix.Each can has a ribbon and bow on it. But no nuts inside.Just cash. I have a lot of bail bondsmen on my Christmaslist. I eat holiday mix out of Tupperware well into spring.Since my last divorce, it is sometimes all I get for dinner.

Before answering Valenzuela’s question I thoughtabout the calendar call I was headed to. My client wasnamed Harold Casey. If the docket was handled alpha-betically I could make an eleven o’clock hearing down inVan Nuys, no problem. But Judge Orton Powell was inhis last term on the bench. He was retiring. That meant heno longer faced reelection pressures, like those from theprivate bar. To demonstrate his freedom—and possiblyas a form of payback to those he had been politically be-holden to for twelve years—he liked to mix things up inhis courtroom. Sometimes the calendar went alphabeti-cal, sometimes reverse alphabetical, sometimes by filingdate. You never knew how the call would go until you gotthere. Often lawyers cooled their heels for better than anhour in Powell’s courtroom. The judge liked that.

“I think I can make eleven,” I said, without knowingfor sure. “What’s the case?”

“Guy’s gotta be big money. Beverly Hills address,family lawyer waltzing in here first thing. This is the realthing, Mick. They booked him on a half mil and hismother’s lawyer came in here today ready to sign overproperty in Malibu to secure it. Didn’t even ask about

Michael Connelly4


getting it lowered first. I guess they aren’t too worriedabout him running.”

“Booked for what?” I asked.I kept my voice even. The scent of money in the water

often leads to a feeding frenzy but I had taken care ofValenzuela on enough Christmases to know I had him onthe hook exclusively. I could play it cool.

“The cops booked him for ag-assault, GBI and at-tempted rape for starters,” the bondsman answered. “TheDA hasn’t filed yet as far as I know.”

The police usually overbooked the charges. What mat-tered was what the prosecutors finally filed and took tocourt. I always say cases go in like a lion and come outlike a lamb. A case going in as attempted rape and aggra-vated assault with great bodily injury could easily comeout as simple battery. It wouldn’t surprise me and itwouldn’t make for much of a franchise case. Still, if Icould get to the client and make a fee agreement based onthe announced charges, I could look good when the DAlater knocked them down.

“You got any of the details?” I asked.“He was booked last night. It sounds like a bar pickup

gone bad. The family lawyer said the woman’s in it forthe money. You know, the civil suit to follow the criminalcase. But I’m not so sure. She got beat up pretty goodfrom what I heard.”

“What’s the family lawyer’s name?”“Hold on a sec. I’ve got his card here somewhere.”I looked out the window while waiting for Valenzuela

to find the business card. I was two minutes from theLancaster courthouse and twelve minutes from calendar

The Lincoln Lawyer 5


call. I needed at least three of those minutes in betweento confer with my client and give him the bad news.

“Okay, here it is,” Valenzuela said. “Guy’s name isCecil C. Dobbs, Esquire. Out of Century City. See, I toldyou. Money.”

Valenzuela was right. But it wasn’t the lawyer’s Cen-tury City address that said money. It was the name. Iknew of C. C. Dobbs by reputation and guessed that therewouldn’t be more than one or two names on his entireclient list that didn’t have a Bel-Air or Holmby Hills ad-dress. His kind of client went home to the places wherethe stars seemed to reach down at night to touch theanointed.

“Give me the client’s name,” I said.“That would be Louis Ross Roulet.”He spelled it and I wrote it down on a legal pad.“Almost like the spinning wheel but you pronounce it

Roo-lay,” he said. “You going to be here, Mick?”Before responding I wrote the name C. C. Dobbs on

the pad. I then answered Valenzuela with a question.“Why me?” I asked. “Was I asked for? Or did you sug-

gest me?”I had to be careful with this. I had to assume Dobbs

was the kind of lawyer who would go to the Californiabar in a heartbeat if he came across a criminal defense at-torney paying off bondsmen for client referrals. In fact, Istarted wondering if the whole thing might be a bar stingoperation that Valenzuela hadn’t picked up on. I wasn’tone of the bar’s favorite sons. They had come at me be-fore. More than once.

“I asked Roulet if he had a lawyer, you know? A crim-inal defense lawyer, and he said no. I told him about you.

Michael Connelly6


I didn’t push it. I just said you were good. Soft sell, youknow?”

“Was this before or after Dobbs came into it?”“No, before. Roulet called me this morning from the

jail. They got him up on high power and he saw the sign,I guess. Dobbs showed up after that. I told him you werein, gave him your pedigree, and he was cool with it. He’llbe there at eleven. You’ll see how he is.”

I didn’t speak for a long moment. I wondered howtruthful Valenzuela was being with me. A guy like Dobbswould have had his own man. If it wasn’t his own forte,then he’d have had a criminal specialist in the firm or, atleast, on standby. But Valenzuela’s story seemed to con-tradict this. Roulet came to him empty-handed. It told methat there was more to this case I didn’t know than whatI did.

“Hey, Mick, you there?” Valenzuela prompted.I made a decision. It was a decision that would even-

tually lead me back to Jesus Menendez and that I wouldin many ways come to regret. But at the moment it wasmade, it was just another choice made of necessity androutine.

“I’ll be there,” I said into the phone. “I’ll see you ateleven.”

I was about to close the phone when I heard Valen-zuela’s voice come back at me.

“And you’ll take care of me for this, right, Mick? Imean, you know, if this is the franchise.”

It was the first time Valenzuela had ever sought assur-ance of a payback from me. It played further into myparanoia and I carefully constructed an answer that wouldsatisfy him and the bar—if it was listening.

The Lincoln Lawyer 7


“Don’t worry, Val. You’re on my Christmas list.”I closed the phone before he could say anything else

and told my driver to drop me off at the employee en-trance to the courthouse. The line at the metal detectorwould be shorter and quicker there and the security menusually didn’t mind the lawyers—the regulars—sneak-ing through so they could make court on time.

As I thought about Louis Ross Roulet and the case andthe possible riches and dangers that waited for me, I putthe window back down so I could enjoy the morning’slast minute of clean, fresh air. It still carried the taste ofpromise.

Michael Connelly8


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The Lincoln Lawyer -- Read the Book Now! Watch the Movie in Theaters 3/18!