Michael Connelly’s latest novel, The Fifth Witness, returns defense attorney Mickey Haller as the main character. Because of the economy, criminal defense work has dried up. Although Los Angeles still has crime, paying customers are few and far between. Haller shifts his practice to mortgage law, hoping to help people keep their homes. One of his clients, Lisa Trammel, is charged with the murder of Michael Bondurant, the bank Vice-President, who is trying to take away her home. Michael Connelly spoke to the Writer’s Blog on April 5th and here are excerpts from the interview.

Q: What gave you the idea to write a series of books based on a defense attorney?

Connelly: A light bulb went off in my head at Dodger Stadium ten years ago. A stranger sitting next to me was a criminal defense attorney. He said he pretty much worked out of his car. He described it as ‘have case will travel.’ The more he talked about it the more I understood that this could be an entrée into a genre or a book world. The first Haller book came out five years later.

 

Q: The first Mickey Haller book, The Lincoln Lawyer, was made into a movie starring Matthew McConaughey .Does that cause a problem writing more books based on the Haller character?

Connelly: When I create a character I always use the image in my own head. I had a movie made about ten years ago where Clint Eastwood played one of my characters. He was quite different than the character in the book. He was thirty years older and there were other issues as well. His image affected how I thought about that character so I killed him off. I thought the same thing would happen with Matthew McConaughey but I was lucky. I had already written three books and was in the middle of writing this book when the movie came out so it did not affect me.

 

Q: Can you describe the Haller character?

Connelly: I had to go with what I knew. I was a newspaper reporter in this town (Los Angeles) covering police, courts, and being exposed to the world of crime and how it worked. I had pretty good success with Harry Bosch. With Mickey Haller I thought he could be judged against characters of a great writer like Raymond Chandler. Haller is an underdog that faces off against the government. The challenge with Mickey is to present him as a person whose ideals or morals have been corrupted which he clearly knows. I did this through the first person voice. Mickey is really charming even if he defends most clients who are guilty.

 

Q: What was the challenge with the Haller character?

Connelly: The challenge of any book is to get the reader to ride with this person. Mickey Haller is quite opposite from my other character, Harry Bosch. Bosch by default has the reader’s empathy since he wants to restore order to a scene of mass disorder to find a killer. The Haller type of character is either misunderstood or despised by most of society. We all believe in our justice system, that people deserve a full and vigorous defense. The cool contradiction is that criminal defense attorneys are looked upon by society as someone who is trying to get away with something. The big question for Haller is how can you live with yourself having clients like these?

 

Q: Did The Lincoln Lawyer movie influence the novel, The Fifth Witness?

Connelly: The movie did influence the book. The book is more about Mickey going back to his roots in the car, more of the scrambling. More of how he is at his wits end. This is back to the Mickey Haller I started with in the first book, The Lincoln Lawyer

 

Q: Can you briefly summarize The Fifth Witness?

Connelly: This book is framed around foreclosures. Crime does not necessarily stop but people with money for private attorneys do. An attorney I knew had to replace his declining income so he went and took some foreclosure defense classes and used that as his specialty. The light bulb went off when I saw the possibility of writing a thriller around this issue.

Interview compliments of Writersblocpresents.com

The Fifth Witness
Michael Connelly
Little Brown and Company
April 5th, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-316-06938-0

Read Laura's review of The Fifth Witness || Read an excerpt