Mickey Haller has been asked to do the unthinkable: to cross the aisle and serve as a prosecutor.   The reason is simple: an old case is being re-tried, and for propriety’s sake,   the City of Los Angeles wants to bring in someone who can work the case without any old prejudices and without suspicion of trying to hide any old mistakes.  Mickey agrees on two terms: one, his ex-wife Maggie McPherson be his assistant counsel; and two, he gets to choose the police investigator who helps him build the case.  His choice? Harry Bosch,   the star of Connelly’s prior novels and Mickey’s half-brother.  Haller and Bosch have run into each other a few times at this point in their respective series, but this is truly a family reunion with each brother’s daughters getting to be friends and sometimes sheltering together when it appears the case might be getting personal. 

The Reversal is a legal novel, by and large,  with some ‘creepy’ elements in that the accused has strange nocturnal habits; he parks in strange places around the city, sitting alone with a burning candle.  Bosch has the grim suspicion that the accused was in fact a serial killer, and that the man is visiting sites related to his prior kills. Haller has a lot of his own plate, revisiting evidence that’s decades old, and trying to figure out what angle the defense might take. The pace is fast, spurred on by a judge with no tolerance for time-wasting theatrics, or for lawyers who play games – and the more the story develops, the more dangerous the circumstances grow for those involved in the case. The ending is right out of left field and is more in Bosch’s ballpark.

This was an enjoyable return to Bosch & Haller, though I imagine readers’ reactions to the end will vary wildly.