The Fifth Witness

I really like this series by Michael Connelly featuring itinerant lawyer, Mickey Haller (aka The Lincoln Lawyer). Fifth Witness is the 4th major book for this character series--there are posts for 4 other books in the series (Lincoln Lawyer, The Brass Verdict,  The Reversal, The Gods of Guilt). Crime has been slow during the Great Recession (as it came to be known) and Mickey has put himself in the business of helping those whose homes are being foreclosed. There are plenty of clients, some more legitimately victims than others, and then there is Lisa. She is always inserting herself in Mickey's efforts to keep the bank from foreclosing on the house where she is living with her son. When the head of the mortgage department at the bank is murdered, Lisa is arrested. Mickey is convinced that she is being railroaded by the police department, and also that the whole thing may have been a set up by the CEO of the company that contracts with the bank to do foreclosures. It appears he has ties to organized crime and does not want that disclosed in an upcoming merger with a public company that will bring him millions of dollars. There is the usual push to get his client off with whatever strategies work--discrediting witnesses, creating a "straw man" to put reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors, and always trying to stay at least one step ahead of the prosecution. Mickey and ex-wife Maggie continue to dance an approach-avoidance two-step that is complicated by their mutual love for teenage daughter., Hayley. Maggie, as a prosecutor for the county, still considers Mickey's tactics reprehensible. Even his new associate, fresh out of a department store law program, has her doubts. But Mickey wears his blinders so he can live with himself and defend his clients to the best of his ability. In this case, the enemies may be much closer than he thinks.