I felt what Maggie had tried to describe to me on more than one occasion when we were married. She always called it the burden of proof. Not the legal burden. But the psychic burden of knowing that you stood as representative of all the people. I had always dismissed her explanations as self-serving. The prosecutor was always the overdog. The Man…. I never understood what she was trying to tell me.

Until now.

I still haven’t entirely warmed to Michael Connelly’s “Lincoln Lawyer” character, Mickey Haller, who strikes me as somewhat irresponsible (a useful quality, perhaps, in a criminal defense lawyer).

But The Reversal, “A Lincoln Lawyer” novel, is as much a story of Mickey’s half-brother, police detective Harry Bosch, as it is one of Mickey’s, so I had no problem getting on board. And the story as a whole seemed to me as engaging and sympathetic as anything Connelly has written in some time.

It begins with Mickey doing something he’s always sworn he’d never do—go to work (on a temporary basis) as a county prosecutor, making and presenting a case against a convicted child murderer. DNA evidence has won the convict a new trial, but the District Attorney’s office still believes they have the right man. The most important element in their case is the eyewitness, the victim’s older sister, who was only a child at the time.

Mickey agrees to do the job—just this once—on the condition that he gets his ex-wife, prosecutor Maggie MacPherson, as his associate. (He wants to improve his relationship with her.) With Harry Bosch as chief investigator, it makes the entire prosecution a family affair.

The narration switches back and forth from Mickey’s point of view (presented in the first person) and Harry’s (in the third person). The alternation makes an interesting counterpoint. Mickey is all about tactics and strategies, intuiting the defense’s moves on the basis of his own considerable experience on that side of the courtroom. Meanwhile, Harry runs down leads and dogs the suspect in his accustomed, obsessive way, his focus always on his duty (or vocation), as an officer of society itself, to see justice done and the evil removed from our midst.

This being fiction, of course, even the best courtroom strategist can’t foresee, or prevent, the big surprise that takes the story’s climax out of the safety of the courtroom and into the perils of a city full of innocent bystanders.

The Reversal is an excellent thriller from a master storyteller.

Recommended for adults. Cautions for language and icky stuff.

Lars Walker is the author of several fantasy novels, the most recent of which is West Oversea.