A tale of two trials

     Hello, this is one of Mr C's guest posts. I'm currently reading Anthony Trollope's great saga of mid-Victorian politics and high society, the Palliser novels, but just as restaurants used to refresh the palate half way through a rich meal with a refreshing, astringent sorbet, I have taken a break by devouring at top speed and with great enthusiasm Michael Connelly's The Brass Verdict, a Los Angeles crime novel in which he brings together his two great protagonists, lawyer Mickey Haller and detective Harry (christened Hieronymus) Bosch. There are some interesting points of contact and contrast between these two very different worlds. Both Phineas Redux and The Brass Verdict have dramatic murder trials at their narrative heart, and here are two passages in which the defence lawyer prepares to do his work:

"Mr Chaffanbrass smiled at his victim, and for a moment was quite soft with him - as a cat is soft with a mouse..."

"A trial is a contest of lies[...]The trick if you are waiting at the defense table is to be patient. To wait. Not for just any lie. But for the one you can grab on to and forge like hot iron into a sharpened blade. You then use that blade to rip the case open and spill its guts out on to the floor..."

     In one the menace is suggested but veiled, in the other it is brutal and open, but the trials of Phineas Finn and Walter Elliott (a sly Austen reference perhaps) share the same compelling, page-turning power. I'm now on the home straight with Trollope but when I have finished I will be eager to read Connelly's latest, The Scarecrow.

Comments

[adele geras]

I,too, have just read The Brass Verdict, Mr C! And loved it. The Lincoln Lawyer, about the same character is also splendid. And I was lured into the 'chapter at the back of the book' and want to read The Scarecrow at once...

Afraid I can't comment on the Trollope. I have never read any of his books at all and feel great guilt at the admission. I will embark on him one day but meanwhile there are these tempting little modern things strewing the path.

[elizabeth]

I love the Brass Verdict, Mr C, in fact I've read it twice! And The Lincoln Lawyer; I love that concept. Interesting in Brass verdict to see Haller describe Harry Bosch, who I have always liked, as having 'dead eyes'. And thinking of the ending, I wonder if they will ever meet again! I've just finished The Scarecrow and loved that too; Connelly is a great writer, and as the blurb says, on the same level as Grisham with his legal theme here (although I have to say that Grisham's The Associate is hard to beat).