Essay Questions

What is the point of the chapters alternating between first-person and third-person point of view?

The chapters focusing on Mickey Haller are first-person narrative accounts. The chapters which focus on Harry Bosch stand in stark contrast with their third-person perspective. Point of view is possibly the single most under-appreciated literary device in fiction. Most readers take for granted that a story being told is the same thing is the same story no matter who is telling it. This dual narrative approach reveals just how misguided this assumption is. Although the events playing out in the chapters may remain the same regardless of who is telling the story, the presentation of these two characters vary wildly. By offering person insight into himself, Haller becomes a more empathetic and less morally ambiguous person. The decision to have an external third-person narrating Bosch’s story lacks this personal perspective, serving to intensify the ambiguity of his personality and making him less easy to identify with than Haller.

What is the meaning of the title?

The duality of the narrative approach is also raised in the how the story connects to the title. The title refers to two different significant actions that take place, but one is generated by the other and combine together to form a single coherent storyline. The initial development is an appeals court decision which reverse the guilty verdict of Jason Jessup after almost a quarter-century of his life spent in prison. This reversal directly stimulates the decision by protagonist/narrator Mickey Haller to reverse his usual position within the justice system as defense counsel in favor of helping to prosecute Jessup a second time since he is convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt of Jessup’s guilt.

What longstanding foundational element of the criminal prosecution system comes under intense scrutiny in this story?

The criminal action at the heart of this story actually took place a quarter of a century earlier. Over the course of the twenty-four years that Jason Jessup has spent in prison for the murder he was convicted for having committed, nothing much about the judicial system changed…except for shifting the focus of cop shows on TV from colorful Det. Columbo questioning every witness he could find to a team of bland, interchangeable detectives waiting for results from the lab. The stars of the courtroom during real-life trials for violent crimes had long been the eyewitnesses.

Except for fingerprint evidence—which more often than one might think was utterly lacking in most cases—it was eyewitness testimony above all else which could best ensure a verdict of either guilt or innocence. The development of DNA technology along with eye-opening research into the comprehensive unreliability of eyewitness recall has served to severely curtail the significance of such testimony. Jessup was initially convicted largely on the strength of witness testimony which newly discovered DNA evidence has called into question.