The Lincoln Lawyer

Michael Connelly is a prolific New York Times bestselling author. His legal thriller, The Lincoln Lawyer, won the Shamus Award and Macavity Award in 2006. The book was then successfully adapted to film. Connelly is widely regarded as one of the best American mystery writers.

This guide refers to the 2005 Hieronymus, Inc. edition.

Plot Summary

Michael “Mick” Haller is a criminal defense attorney working in Los Angeles. He spends most of his time working out of his Lincoln Town Car with his driver, Earl. Mick is a fast talking, smart attorney with a complicated personal life. Accustomed to representing criminals, Mick makes his money by defending the guilty and helping them reach agreeable plea bargains with the prosecution. Mick is surprised to find himself requested personally by a very wealthy client, Louis Roulet, who has been charged with attempted rape. Mick is even more surprised to find that his ex-wife, Maggie, has been assigned to the prosecution on the same case. She is adamant that his client is guilty and increases the charges to attempted murder. Mick begins to believe that Louis Roulet, a wealthy white man with no prior record, just may be his first truly innocent client.

Louis Roulet believes that he was targeted for his wealth and set up by a sex worker and one of her regulars. Roulet says that he was lured to Reggie Campo’s apartment under the impression that they would have sex. However, when he arrived, Reggie struck Roulet over the head and Roulet blacked out. He regained consciousness when he was being held down by two men. Reggie was crying and badly beaten, and she was telling the police that Louis attacked her and tried to rape and murder her. There is evidence to suggest that Roulet is telling the truth, but the investigator, Raul Levin, uncovers some cracks in Roulet’s story: Roulet was in fact aware that Reggie Campo is a sex worker, and he carried a knife with him (the murder weapon) to her apartment.

As the trial unfolds, Mick begins to notice similarities between this case and his prior client, Jesus Menendez. Jesus was charged for a very similar crime against a woman named Martha Renteria. She was attacked in her home, raped, and murdered with a knife. As Mick and the investigator, Levin, get closer to the truth about Roulet, they realize that Jesus Menendez was innocent all along. Jesus is serving time in San Quentin for a crime that Louis Roulet committed. They realize that Roulet chose Mick as his attorney to protect himself: Anything Mick knows about Roulet is protected by attorney-client privilege. Even when Roulet admits to being guilty of both the crime that he is accused of, as well as the murder of Martha Renteria, Mick cannot give this confession to the police.

Levin continues to investigate Roulet as Mick defends him in trial. Levin leaves a voicemail for Mick confirming that he has found the crucial evidence to pin the murder on Roulet and get Jesus out of prison. Moments later, Levin is murdered. Mick’s gun is missing from his home, which matches the gun used to shoot Levin. Mick assumes that Roulet stole the gun and used it to murder Levin in order to frame Mick. Mick decides that the best way to catch Roulet is through the trial. He argues very well to get the jury to think Roulet is innocent, all while hatching a secret plan: Mick bribes the prosecution’s witness (a jail house snitch) to say that Roulet bragged in jail about killing a girl with a snake tattoo. When the witness makes this testimony, the detectives in the courtroom immediately understand that Roulet is guilty of murdering Martha Renteria.

Mick’s plan succeeds and after Roulet is acquitted for the assault on Reggie Campo, he is immediately arrested outside the courtroom for the murder of Martha Renteria. Roulet threatens Mick as he is handcuffed, threatening to come for Mick’s ex-wife and daughter. Unbeknownst to Roulet, that is exactly what the detectives are hoping he will do. Mick doesn’t know it, but the cops are using him as bait. The police hold Roulet for a few hours; and as soon as he is released, Roulet heads for Mick’s ex-wife’s house. However, just as Mick is loading up a gun and heading for his car, Roulet’s mother, Mary Windsor, shows up and shoots Mick in the stomach. She tells him that she has to kill him for what he did to Roulet, and Mick sees that she is holding his own stolen gun. He realizes that she is the one who killed Levin. Before she shoots Mick a second time, Mick fires his concealed gun and kills her.

The detectives that followed Roulet and his mother witness the shooting, so they confirm that Mick fired in self-defense. Roulet is arrested and, after further investigation, he is charged with the murder of Martha Renteria, the attack on Reggie Campo, and another rape and murder Mick hadn’t known about. Roulet is sentenced to life in prison, and Jesus Menendez is released. Mick needs multiple surgeries for the gunshot wound, and the fact that Jesus served so much time in prison for a crime he didn’t commit is something that haunts Mick for the rest of his life. But he continues practicing law as a defense attorney, hoping to fight for the underdogs of the world.