Meet real Mickey Haller, before he was a film star

Movie fans may know the name Mickey Haller as the Los Angeles criminal defense attorney in the recent Matthew McConaughey film “The Lincoln Lawyer.”

The film is based on Michael Connelly’s first novel of the same name.

Connelly never sleeps. Neither does Haller. The author’s second Haller novel was “The Reversal,” and the third one, “The Fifth Witness,” was just published and it’s already a best-seller.

The latest book has Haller trying to pay his bills by defending people whose homes are being foreclosed; a sad, true-life situation repeated in every city. The homeowner in the novel is Lisa Trammel.

Suddenly Haller’s defense of Trammel shifts to criminal court when she’s charged with the murder of a top official at a bank trying to take her home away. Trammel says she’s innocent. Haller doesn’t want to know if she’s telling the truth. He simply wants to provide her the best defense.

The story gives readers insights into the politics of courtroom procedures, tactics, the behavior and body language of trial lawyers for the defense and the prosecution. Trammel’s is a jury trial.

Connelly balances the main courtroom thread with Haller’s handling of his small legal staff, the pursuit of witnesses, one of whom is the double-meaning “fifth” witness, and Haller’s personal life. Readers see Haller’s relationship with his young daughter Hayley and with Hayley’s mom, who is one of his ex-wives; she happens to work in the DA’s office and is a buddy of the attorney battling Haller in the courtroom.

These are engrossing, entwined layers that film can only hint at. The end of the trial isn’t the end of the novel. Enough said.

Moviegoers should acquaint themselves with Haller in book form. Connelly is better known as the author of the long-running series of L.A.-based novels with detective Harry Bosch as protagonist.

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Does one fifth deserve another? I think so. The paperback edition of Kenneth Wishnia’s thriller “The Fifth Servant” (Harper, $14.99) is just out. It’s a compelling mystery set in Prague in 1592. Talmudic scholar Benyamin Ben-Akiva, just arrived from Poland, probes the murder of a Christian girl inside a Jewish ghetto shop on the eve of Passover. The shopowner is arrested and charged with the inflammatory blood libel. Benyamin has three days to find the real killer and perhaps save himself and the other Jews of Prague.

David Steinberg is the Journal’s Books editor and an Arts writer.