Set two years after the events in Resurrection
Walk, Micky Haller is doing things quite differently now. Gone,
except for one car, are the Lincolns that made him very well known as “The
Lincoln Lawyer.” Gone as well is the old office. Now his office is in the
warehouse that used to store, among other things, the fleet of cars. He still practices
law, but he is no longer fighting criminal cases. He now practices civil law
which can be just as important.
The team remains intact. The cases
remain huge. And, as always, vitally important for his clients.
That is certainly true for the major
case that Haller and the team are handling as The Proving Ground: A
Lincoln Lawyer Novel by Michael Connelly begins. The case is Randolph
Versus Tidalwaiv Technologies LLC before Federal District Court Margaret
Ruhlin. The case, basically, boils down to this: a mom had her only child, a
teenage daughter, murdered by another teen because the AI program told him to
kill. Not only are the big tech companies watching the case, and possibly considering
buying Tidalwaiv Technologies, the mainstream media is covering the case to
some extent.
Haller is fighting an uphill battle
against a cutting edge tech company with money, resources, numerous non-disclosure
agreements, attorneys, and much more in their arsenal to force an end to the case,
one way or the other. They are willing to settle the case at an amount, that for
them, is less than pennies on the dollar. They also refuse to make an admission
of wrongdoing or apologize for what happened and the tragedy that occurred because
of their product.
But, they are dealing with a mom who
will never get back what she wants most—her daughter alive and well. She knows
the AI companion told her daughter’s ex-boyfriend to kill her. She is sure it
never would have happened without that thing telling him to do it. If she can’t
have her daughter back, she wants the next best thing—a judgement against the
company to force them to be accountable for what they knowingly did and didn’t
care.
Brenda Randolph is not going to settle
for less, no matter what.
What follows is a complex read full of
cross and double-cross inside the courtroom and out. Going in, you know Haller
is probably going to win as that is what he usually does. The question is how?
Along with entertaining readers in that journey,
author Michael Connelly provides some scary insight into aspects of Artificial
Intelligence and the use of it to generate companions for teens and others. It
isn’t just the possibility of terminator robots that should scare you.
The Proving Ground: A Lincoln
Lawyer Novel
is a mighty good read and well worth your time.
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/46mcxoO
My digital ARC came from the publisher,
Little, Brown and Company, through NetGalley, with no expectation of a positive
review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2025
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