{"id":16336,"date":"2026-10-26T12:13:33","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T16:13:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/?p=16336"},"modified":"2026-10-26T12:13:35","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T16:13:35","slug":"the-fifth-witness-by-michael-connelly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/26\/the-fifth-witness-by-michael-connelly\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Fifth Witness” by Michael Connelly"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Copyright 2011 by Hieronymous Inc. Published by Grand Central Publishing, Hachette Book Group, New York.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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This is a book that I may have read before. I have certainly seen the movie, so the story was pretty familiar. But even though I remembered, vaguely, the outcome, I decided to read it anyway. Why? Because Connelly is a damn good writer. I like reading his books, even when I have read them before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The is #4 (of 8, currently) by Connelly featuring Mickey Haller, the “Lincoln Lawyer,” so called because he works out of the back seat and trunk of his chauffeur-driven Lincoln Towncar. Actually, in this book he rents some office space, partly because his staff has grown (an office manager who happens to be his ex-wife, an investigator who is the ex’s new husband, and a first-year legal assistant). But he also needs an office to be close to the courthouse where he is defending a woman accused of killing the banker who was foreclosing on her home. This was a huge story which garnered national attention and Haller knows that it could make or break his career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is basically a “courtroom drama” story – it is mostly set in the courtroom, with some side stories (Haller and his other ex-wife and daughter and Herb Dahl, a Hollywood guy who tries to cash in on the client’s fame). But it is a really good courtroom drama which provides an incisive look at how a defense attorney plots a defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The “fifth witness” turns out to be NOT the fifth witness to testify for the defense but rather a witness who takes the Fifth Amendment. This was a key moment and resulted in a “not guilty” verdict from the jury. I am not giving too much away by revealing that because how Haller gets to that point is fascinating and because the verdict is not the end of the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Great writing, a fun read. I would read it again. And probably will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9 out of 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Copyright 2011 by Hieronymous Inc. Published by Grand Central Publishing, Hachette Book Group, New York. This is a book that I may have read before. I have certainly seen the movie, so the story was pretty familiar. But even though I remembered, vaguely, the outcome, I decided to read it anyway. Why? Because Connelly is … Continue reading »<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1VniU-4fu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16337,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16336\/revisions\/16337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}