BOOKS IN BRIEF
The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown, 404 pp., $26.95). Though his publishers advance The Lincoln Lawyer as Michael Connelly's first legal thriller, he proved himself a master of courtroom give-and-take in The Concrete Blonde and A Darkness More Than Night, both police procedurals about Los Angeles cop Harry Bosch. In his first book about L.A. lawyer Mickey Haller, the former journalist paints a detailed portrait, often unsavory but uncomfortably believable, of the criminal justice process.
Haller, who does most of his business from a succession of Lincoln town cars, isn't a bad guy--both his ex-wives, one of them an assistant district attorney and the other his office manager, still like him, and he really wants to improve his relationship with his young daughter.
But his professional methods won't endear him to those wary of the defense bar: He lies routinely; his eye is constantly on the bottom line; every Christmas he rewards (with cash concealed in a mixed nut can) bail bondsmen who direct clients his way; and he is untroubled by the morality of getting acquittals or reduced sentences for guilty clients, considering that his necessary role in the system. What does trouble him is the prospect of failing an innocent client--but then, he reasons, when does someone in his business ever have an innocent client?
A referral from one of the recipients of his holiday largesse gets Haller a potential "franchise" (i.e., high-paying) client: real estate-dealer Louis Ross Roulet, charged with attempting to rape and murder a prostitute. In the course of investigating the case, Haller uncovers a parallel to a murder for which one of his earlier clients was convicted and sent to prison.
Not believing the client's protestations of innocence, Haller had pushed him to accept a plea bargain. For various reasons familiar to thriller readers, the lawyer must carry on defending Roulet while looking for a way to exonerate his previous client.
Back in the day of Perry Mason, fictional trials usually focused on saving the unjustly accused. In recent years, in part because dubious verdicts in high-profile cases have remolded public attitudes, the opposite situation has been increasingly common: The criminal is known, and the problem is how to make the case. But how can you have a get-the-scumbag trial novel when your hero is the defense lawyer? Constantly intriguing and surprising the reader, Connelly answers the question in brilliant fashion.
--Jon L. Breen
Nicholas: The Epic Journey from Saint to Santa Claus by Jeremy Seal (Bloomsbury, 368 pp., $24.95). The Santa Claus legend is traced in this eye-opening chronicle over a period of some 1,700 years. Would you believe that the Santa mystique originated in Byzantium, with St. Nicholas of Myra, a 4th-century Orthodox-bish-op? His popular name is a corruption of the Dutch "Sinterklaas."
Santa's reputation for generosity is recorded by his "preeminent chronicler," a Dark Ages scribe known as Symeon of Durham. According to Symeon, "the most charitable and the best known" of all the saint's good deeds was an episode called "Three Daughters." This trio was the progeny of a nobleman who had fallen on hard times. Not having the wherewithal for dowries, their father determined "to sell his daughters into prostitution." How else?
When Nicholas got wind of this, he went to the nobleman's house after dark and "threw a bag of gold through the window." Whereupon the father married off his eldest daughter, using the gold as her dowry. Broke again, the parent was about to sell off his second daughter when Nicholas came through with another bag of gold. Ditto for daughter number three.
The Three Daughters legend received worldwide currency. It's been commemorated on 8th-or 9th-century frescoes on Roman walls, "on millions of Russian icons and on the great stained glass windows of northern France and Germany." And by the three golden balls that identify pawn shops. Jeremy Seal traces the secularization of Santa as the myth made its way from Turkey to the North Pole, which became-Santa's home base when explorer Robert Peary reached it in 1909.
At one time, hijacking sacred relics was a popular fixation. So, as a scenario, Seal follows the remains of St. Nicholas as they are purloined from various sanctuaries by one band of admirers or another. The definitive burglary occured in 1087, when a band of Venetian sailors transfered the saint's relics to their home port from a sarcophagus in Alexandria.
To endow the legend with virtual reality, the author tries to introduce Santa's current incarnation to his two small daughters. On this particular Christmas, Santa can be found in a British exhibition hall, near Birmingham, Seal's home. He's ensconced in a jerry-built abode known as Santa's Kingdom. It's a tough sell. The reaction of 6-year-old Anna is, "That wasn't the real Father Christmas, was it?" To identify the real icon is the mission of "the epic journey." It's a good trip.
- Martin Levin