Michael Connelly will be in Scottsdale, appearing for The Poisoned Pen, on Thursday, Oct. 23 for a live offsite event. His new Lincoln Lawyer novel is The Proving Ground. He’s appearing at The Scottsdale United Methodist Church, 4140 North Miller Road, Scottsdale. No tickets are required. The event is free and open to the public. You can buy books at the event, or you can order a signed copy through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/4qkuEES
Critic Oline Cogdill has shared her review of The Proving Ground. It originally appeared in the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Book review: The Lincoln Lawyer is back in Michael Connelly’s engrossing ‘The Proving Ground’
The Proving Ground: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel’ by Michael Connelly; Little, Brown; 400 pages; $32
Attorney Mickey Haller — known as Michael Connelly’s Lincoln Lawyer character — believes “the proving ground” is the courtroom, where he makes his “final stand” on a case, and was at one time “sacred ground” to him.
“But now it seemed that nothing was sacred anymore. Not the rules of law, and not those who practiced it,” Mickey says.
That statement, both cynical and yet also oddly respectful of the legal profession, is indicative of the vagaries of the law and of Mickey Haller, who makes his eighth appearance in Connelly’s engrossing “The Proving Ground.”
As usual, Connelly’s book titles take on several meanings. The proving ground can refer to the courtroom, the incubation of a computer program, and how Mickey must prove he can manage his new career path to his clients and to himself. (The character is well-known from the 2011 movie starring Matthew McConaughey and an ongoing Netflix series.)
Mickey is no longer the Lincoln Lawyer, though it seems that everyone in Los Angeles knows him by that appellation. Mickey has given up lucrative criminal law in favor of civil law, which can be profitable but the payoff is slower. He still has a Lincoln, but only one and it’s “under a tarp” in his warehouse. These days he drives a Bolt.
In “The Proving Ground,” Mickey’s client is a mother whose 16-year-old daughter was murdered by her boyfriend when she tried to end the relationship. Mickey has filed a negligence suit against Tidalwaiv Technologies, which devised a chatbot companion for teenagers, especially teenage boys. Mickey asserts that the chatbot creators ignored ethics and guardrails to conceive a misogynistic Artificial Intelligence model that targeted impressionable teen boys. Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake, but the mother has instructed Mickey not to settle just for money, no matter the figure. She wants a public apology and an assurance that safeguards will be put in place.
Among Connelly’s strengths: weaving current issues into his superb plots and making even the most complicated subjects understandable. One can’t get more timely than AI, nor more complex. Mickey admits the intricacies of AI are beyond him, so Connelly brings back Jack McEvoy, who was first introduced as a reporter in “The Poet” (1996) and is now author of three nonfiction books, each dealing with technological advances. “Advances that were taken advantage of by criminals and other unscrupulous people,” Jack says, introducing himself to Mickey.
Jack wants to work on the case with Mickey and his team. He requests no pay, but envisions a book, perhaps a movie, once the case is resolved. Jack does prove invaluable as the team wades through the swamp of AI minutia while making the reader understand the details of AI.
“The Proving Ground” moves briskly as devious attorneys, shadowy surveillance teams, witness intimidation and suspense fuel the plot. Connelly has always been able to make courtroom scenes vibrant, as he does in “The Proving Ground.”
Connelly has published two novels this year: “The Proving Ground” and “Nightshade” (which came out earlier this year and launched his new Catalina Series with Detective Stilwell, the second of which is planned for spring 2026).
Connelly’s precise look at the law and his return to Mickey Haller are most welcome.
Behind the plot
Michael Connelly often references his other characters in his novels, giving the reader the feeling that his characters inhabit the same universe, as their careers put them in close proximity in Los Angeles. Connelly’s perennial character, Harry Bosch, is Mickey Haller’s half-brother. Harry, his police officer daughter Maddie and Detective Renée Ballard make a cameo appearance in “The Proving Ground,” letting readers know what they’ve been up to.