Fish Out of Water
The title of this book partially refers to the fact that the narrator/protagonist, Mickey Haller, finds himself dealing with a reversal of his usual situation. In previous books, Haller been situated as a defense attorney doggedly devoted to battling the prosecutorial dark side of the judicial system. In this entry, Haller briefly flips to the other side to deal with one particular case. Much of the drama in the book is stimulated by illuminating the divergence in career discipline between being an attorney committed to defending the accused and being an attorney committed to prosecution the accused.
The Evolution of Criminal Prosecution
The accused in this case has actually already been convicted for the crime of which he is accused. That crime, however, took place twenty-four years earlier and advancements in DNA technology has produced evidence calling that guilty verdict into question. That guilty verdict occurred in the pre-DNA era when only fingerprint evidence trumped eyewitness accounts during a trial. The story thus examines the evolution of criminal prosecution from its long history of relying upon eyewitnesses to the present-day status when DNA evidence so often brings the reliability of witness recall into question.
The Two-Fold Aspect of Law
An interesting element in this novel is that the chapters alternate in their authorial point-of-view. Attorney Mickey Haller tells his own story in an intimate first-person account. By contrast, the police procedural chapters focusing on a police detective named Harry Bosch are conveyed through third-person narration. One consequence of this decision is that Haller becomes a more empathetic character than Bosch with whom the reader can more readily identify. There is also a thematic dimension to this decision, however, subtle though it may be. The division of chapters gives this crime thriller a two-fold aspect the criminal justice system in America. Bosch the law enforcement officer is provided an objective, just-the-facts narrative voice while Haller the attorney is allowed a far more subjective and emotionally nuanced presentation, reflecting the presumed foundations of both those aspects of the legal system.
