Just in time for his movie debut this spring, Connelly brings back the Lincoln Lawyer for a satisfying case that pits him against a real-estate foreclosure mill.

Lisa Trammel never met Mitchell Bondurant, but the two of them had reason to loathe each other. As senior vice president at WestLand National Bank, Bondurant made the call to foreclose on Trammel's house after her husband left her and their 9-year-old son and her mortgage went underwater. Nothing daunted, Trammel started a grassroots organization called Foreclosure Litigants Against Greed (FLAG) to fight WestLand and its allies in the media, and hired Mickey Haller (The Reversal, 2010, etc.) to fight WestLand in court. Both the legal battle and the media circus take a dramatic new turn when Bondurant is found bashed to death in a parking garage and a witness places Trammel half a block away within a few minutes of the bashing. Det. Howard Kurlen, LAPD, immediately picks up Trammel, questions her and then arrests her for murder. Digging in her heels, she insists that she didn't kill Bondurant; she never even met Bondurant; she's never changed her story one bit; and every bit of forensic evidence against her—and by the end, there's plenty—can be explained as part of a frame-up. It's the job of Mickey, his investigator Dennis ("Cisco") Wojciechowski and his new associate Jennifer ("Bullocks") Aronson to dig up someone who could plausibly have framed her. As the evidence piles up against Trammel, evidence casting suspicion on Bondurant's other associates piles up alongside it. Mickey is beaten up by two guys who clearly don't like the questions he's been asking. The mountain of paperwork prosecutor Andrea Freeman reluctantly shares with Mickey discloses an unsavory connection that could well point to another killer. And the third-party suspect Mickey zeroes in on obligingly behaves exactly like a guilty party.

"With me, it's don't ask, don't tell," Mickey tells the starry-eyed Bullock, who wonders why this junkyard dog never asks his client if she's innocent. Though the answer isn't as mysterious as you might like, the courtroom scenes—thrust, parry, struggle for every possible advantage—are grueling enough for the most exacting connoisseur of legal intrigue.

No, not Harry Bosch but Mickey Haller, who's done so well (starting with The Lincoln Lawyer in 2005) that Connelly keeps bringing him back for more. In this up-to-the-minute thriller, criminal defense attorney Haller has taken on foreclosure work, which creates complications; one of his clients is accused of killing the banker threatening to foreclose on her home. Buy multiples.

Connelly continues his winning streak with his latest thriller featuring attorney Mickey Haller (The Lincoln Lawyer). Lisa Trammel has hit the skids. Her husband took off, leaving her alone with a child. Her salary as a teacher is not enough to pay the mortgage, and the result is foreclosure. Trammel approaches Haller for help trying to save her home. Soon after, the person at the bank responsible for the foreclosure is found murdered in a parking garage next to his office. Within hours, Trammel is in jail, and Haller has to maneuver his way through more than potential bank fraud to prove his client's innocence. VERDICT When did Connelly become the best legal thriller writer in the business? The story line is compelling, intense, and terrifying while providing an in-depth look at the mortgage crisis that is surprisingly interesting. With the film version of The Lincoln Lawyer scheduled for release March 18, expect high demand. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 11/15/10.]—Jeff Ayers, Seattle P.L.

Connelly's compelling fourth legal thriller featuring Mickey Haller (after Reversal) finds the maverick L.A. lawyer who uses his Lincoln town car as an office specializing in "foreclosure defense." Haller's first foreclosure client, Lisa Trammel, is fighting hard to keep her home, maybe too hard. The bank has gotten a restraining order to stop Trammel's protests, and she becomes the prime suspect when Mitchell Bondurant, a mortgage banker, is killed with a hammer in his office parking lot. A ton of evidence points to Trammel, but Haller crafts an impressive defense that includes "the fifth witness" of the title. Connelly has a sure command of the legal and procedural details of criminal court, and even manages to make the arcane, shady world of foreclosure interesting. While the prose may lack some of the poetic nuance of his early novels, the plot is worthy of a master storyteller. The film of The Lincoln Lawyer, the first Mickey Haller novel, releases in March. (Apr.)