Wednesday, June 10, 2026
Tuesday, May 19, 2026
Thursday, January 29, 2026
Thursday Treats
Welcome back to “Thursday Treats.” The first column last week proved to be incredibly popular. More than I had thought possible. Thank you to those who commented here and elsewhere, shared the post, and made it clear that it was a hit. Thank you. The bar has been set high so I hope I can keep meeting it.
Cameron Trost recently
announced on Facebook that Dead on the Dolmen, the first Oscar
Tremont, Investigator of the Strange and Inexplicable novel, will be released
on the 30th of January. https://mybook.to/deadonthedolmen. I took
advantage of the pre order deal and used funds in my Amazon Associate account
to snag the eBook copy.
Authors Barb Goffman, Dave Zeltserman,
and many others appear in Black Cat Weekly
#230.
BCW is a weekly publication featuring short stories and novellas in multiple
genres. You can buy individual issues or one of the far better subscription
deals at blackcatweekly.com.
Craig Johnson announced on Facebook that The Brothers McKay: A Longmire Mystery is coming out in late May. Amazon has the listing for it. Based on the synopsis there, it seems like Walt is closer to home this time. Been a big fan of this series, so I am hoping I get a shot at it on NetGalley or through the Dallas Library System. NetGalley has added it, so I put in my request. Viking is the publisher. I do not have a good track record with them in being granted the approval to read stuff.
Michael Connelly also announced
on Facebook that Ironwood is coming out in mid-May. Amazon has
the listing for it. This is
the second book in the police procedural series that started with Nightshade. I very much
enjoyed that book so I am very much looking forward to this. No sign of it,
yet, at either NetGalley or the Dallas Public Library System.
I am a big fan of the works of Steven F.
Havill. His Posadas County Mystery series has gone on for many years,
and it is mighty good. I told you about the most recent one, If It Isn’t One
Thing… A Posadas County Mystery, last March. Knowing he does very
little social media, I have been checking Amazon for the new one. They now have
it listed. Reverse: A
Posadas County Mystery comes out in May. NetGalley got it listed yesterday and I grabbed it. I got it right away as it is with Severn House who has me
preapproved on NetGalley for everything they do.
By the way, if you don’t already know,
Lesa Holstine does a blog post every Thursday where folks, including yours
truly, share what we are reading. Make sure you check it out at Lesa’s Book Critiques. It will,
guaranteed, make your TBR pile grow.
Which in one way is not helpful at all
as my long standing order for the READ FASTER, DAMN IT! brain implant is still
on backorder at Amazon. Apparently, there are supply chain issues. 😉
Kevin R. Tipple ©2026
Monday, January 19, 2026
Mystery Fanfare: The Lincoln Lawyer: Season 4
Tuesday, October 21, 2025
Publication Day Review: The Proving Ground: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel by Michael Connelly
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
Thursday, September 11, 2025
Thursday, July 24, 2025
Jungle Red Writers: Michael Connelly's female detective: a different kind of "hardboiled"
Tuesday, July 08, 2025
Mystery Fanfare: Ballard: New streaming series based on Michael Connelly's novels
Monday, June 16, 2025
Friday, June 06, 2025
Friday, March 14, 2025
Wednesday, December 27, 2023
Thursday, November 30, 2023
Review: Resurrection Walk: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel by Michael Connelly
Resurrection Walk: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel
by Michael Connelly splits the time between Bosch and his brother, Mickey
Haller. At its core, the novel is about a flawed justice system and trying to
get innocent people released. But, the read is far more complicated than that.
Mickey Haller is doing pretty well. He just got
Jorge Ochoa out after years of being wrongfully imprisoned for a crime he did
not commit and he likes the feeling that kind of victory. He enjoyed that
thrill of victory as Ochoa walked out, a sort of “resurrection walk.”
These days Bosch works for him so that he has
insurance. Bosch was going to let the cancer do what it did, but changed his
mind. Bosch is fighting, and when he isn’t in treatment, he is driving Haller
around and reading letters from inmates seeking help to overturn convictions.
It is their own version of the “Innocence Project”
and Bosch thinks he may have spotted a case worth looking at in greater detail.
Lucinda Sanz was convicted of manslaughter in the shooting death of her Los
Angeles County Deputy Husband. She pleaded nolo to manslaughter as a plea deal.
She has no idea who killed her husband in the front yard of their house, or
why, but she took the deal because her public defender said to do so. Now she urgently
needs to get out and back home to her son.
While Haller is doing various things, Bosch does
some poking around and is soon questioning the merits of the case against her. Overturning
her plea is going to be damn near impossible, but going to Federal Court might
be a step in the right direction. That case and the fight to get Lucinda Sanz
out of prison is the primary overarching storyline.
Other cases, Bosch’s cancer fight, and various ongoing
matters make up secondary storylines in a complex novel.
While the cancer fight is tough reading for those
of who have gone through it with a loved one, the overall novel does not spend
a ton of time in that storyline. Many things are going on in Resurrection
Walk: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel by Michael Connelly. The result is a
highly entertaining read that pulls the reader along at a rapid clip. The book
is well worth your time.
After the publisher skipped my NetGalley review
request, my reading copy came by way of the Libby/OverDrive App and the Dallas
Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2023
Wednesday, May 25, 2022
Thursday, April 14, 2022
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: The Dark Hours by Michael Connelly
Tuesday, December 07, 2021
Review: The Dark Hours by Michael Connelly
After the fireworks and the gunfire finally ends, they get a
call to respond to a nearby shooting near the intersection of Sunset Boulevard
and Gower Street. Back in the day, it was where day labors were picked up to
work as extras in Westerns. These days, a faded shopping plaza sits on the spot
with walled off studio lots nearby. Across the street is a string of auto
repair shops and aging apartment complexes. It is the gang territory of Las
Palmas 13 and they will soon learn that their victim was once in the Las Palmas
13.
Many years ago, Javier Raffa, bought his way out of the
gang. In the here and now, he was owner of an auto body shop. Each year for
NYE, he would throw a neighborhood party and put out a keg for all. The headshot
he took this night means he won’t be around to host another. The headshot was
also clearly not because of a round coming back to earth.
Somebody executed Raffa at close range and did it while
everyone else in the crowd was looking skyward. Even more interesting, the bullet
involved traces back to a cold case of one Detective Harry Bosch. While he is
even more of a hot potato due to his recent actions, there is no option but to reach
out to Bosch and discuss the situation. She needs his help and has to get it as
quietly as possible in order not to totally destroy her own career.
At the same time, it is also clear that Moore is going to be
zero help, at best, and a definite hindrance at worst. The two are paired as part
of the hunt for a pair of serial rapists known as the “Midnight Men.” The
horrible attitude expressed in so many ways by Moore reflects the ongoing malaise
affecting many in the LAPD. Moral is in the toilet that to the protests, the pandemic,
and various other factors that getting Moore and many other officers to do more
than the minimum is problematic. So, basically, Ballard is on her own on the rape
case and is pretty much on her own on the murder case because using Bosch comes
with limits and severe consequences.
But, like Bosch, Ballard only knows one way to do the job.
Screw the politics, build cases, and get the bad folks off the street. What follows
is an intense police procedural that works by the way of several different
storylines. Multiple cases and other matters are slowly brought together in a
read with a powerful ending. One would expect nothing else from the author and
he more than delivers in The Dark Hours.
The Dark Hours
Michael Connelly
https://www.michaelconnelly.com/
Little, Brown and Company
https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/michael-connelly/the-dark-hours/9780316256568/
November 2021
ISBN# 978-0-316-48564-7
Hardback (also currently available in audio and eBook
formats)
400 Pages
My reading copy came from the Downtown Branch of the Dallas Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2021
Saturday, September 04, 2021
Wednesday, June 16, 2021
Short Story Wednesday Review: A Fine Mist of Blood by Michael Connelly
Not only was she a witness in a homicide case back
in 1999, she was also a witness in another more recent homicide case in 2007. Most
folks go through the entire life without being a homicide witness. Somehow, she
has been cited as a witness twice. If Bosch had not submitted the case to be
digitized, the link never would have been found. It makes Diane Gables very
interesting to Bosch as well as Detective Jerry Edgar of the Hollywood Division.
As long-time readers know, Jerry Edgar and Bosch
have a long and complicated history. United together in A Fine Mist of Blood by Michael Connelly, the resulting case and short story is very interesting and
highly enjoyable.
This short story is in the anthology, Mystery
Writers of America Presents Vengeance. Editor Lee Child, Mulholland
Books, published in 2012. My reading copy came in paperback format from the
Central or Downtown Branch of the Dallas Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2021
Wednesday, January 20, 2021
Crime Watch: Review: LAW OF INNOCENCE by Michael Connelly
Tuesday, January 12, 2021
Review: The Law of Innocence: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel by Michael Connelly
It should have been a great day in the life of attorney Mickey Haller. He had truly had a television Perry Mason style moment that had destroyed a witness and ultimately won his case. The celebration at the Redwood on Second Street had been a fun time for all in attendance.
It was on to
the drive home that things started to go wrong. First it was the traffic stop.
Within a few minutes it was the handcuffs. Then it was the fluid dripping from
the trunk. Then it was the clearly visible dead body inside the trunk.
Halloween 2019 seemingly has come a couple of days early and Mickey Haller is
in for quite a terror filled ride as his entire life is on the line.
Arrested for
a murder he did not commit; Mickey Haller is incarcerated at the Twin Towers Correctional
Facility. To get out of a nearly perfect frame job he is going to not only have
to stay alive in the facility where he has few friends among inmates or staff,
he has to build a credible -- somebody else did it -- style defense. Figuring
out who he knows that could have done this will take time. Something he is in
short supply of since he faces a looming trial and multiple threats including COVID-19.
The
Law of Innocence: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel by Michael Connelly brings together nearly every character currently
and previously present in this series. Haller’s defense that is ultimately
presented in court as COVID-19 begins to draw public attention in early 2020
has numerous links to previous cases. This reader occasionally struggled to
remember those cases before deciding to just read on and focus on the current
story. The resulting read is complicated, intense, and pretty good. Because of
the links in this book will invalidate pretty much any reason to read the
earlier books, I suggest reading your way forward in the series to get to here.
It will be worth it.
The Law of Innocence: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel
Michael Connelly
Little, Brown and Company (Hatchett Book Group)
https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/michael-connelly/the-law-of-innocence/9780316498029/
November 2020
ISBN# 978-0-316-49802-9
eBook (also available in audio, hardback, and large print
paperback)
433 Pages
My reading
copy came in eBook format via the Dallas Library and the LibbyApp and the
technical assistance of my son, Scott, who did some sort of magic to make
things work.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2021
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