Smart-talking defence attorney Mickey Haller is the second of the masterful creations of the 57-year-old Connelly - after his unforgettable Detective Hieronymus 'Harry' Bosch. Haller first appeared in 2005 and this is his fifth incarnation. It underlines the fact that Connelly is one of the great crime writers, a novelist who creates a fictional world so succinctly, and inhabits it so purposefully, that you are convinced it must be real. His mastery of place and character, his ease with dialogue, his control of plot gives his books a subtlety that is irresistible DAILY MAIL