This October marks the 20th anniversary of the publication of Michael Connelly’s bestselling novel The Lincoln Lawyer, featuring Mickey Haller, a scrappy attorney who does business out of his Lincoln town car. This fall, Little, Brown will release The Proving Ground—the eighth novel in the Lincoln Lawyer series. PW spoke with Connelly’s longtime editor, Asya Muchnick, about the thrill ride of working with Connelly, and what it’s been like to edit the iconic series.

You’ve been working with Michael Connelly on the iconic Lincoln Lawyer series for 20 years. Congratulations! What has it been like?

It’s hard to believe it’s been twenty years! I can remember when Mike first mentioned that he had an idea for a new series, and this one would not be about a cop or an FBI agent but about a lawyer. The premise was that, for a defense lawyer, “There is no client as scary as an innocent man,” and that this one would cover the large distances between L.A. courthouses by working out of his car. Before reading a single word of what would become The Lincoln Lawyer, I was hooked!

When did you first meet Michael Connelly? And what do you like about him a person, and a storyteller?

I first met Mike in the lead-up to the publication of The Closers. We were introduced by his previous longtime editor, Michael Pietsch, who was generously passing the mantle to me. We had already done an edit together over email (and marked-up hard copies, which we were still shipping back and forth at the time!), but only met face-to-face months later. I was very intimidated—Mike was a world-famous bestselling author, and I was still a relatively junior editor without a lot of experience in crime fiction. He has a “man of few words” demeanor, and at first I was sure I was talking too much, but he was extremely gracious and quickly put me at ease. I also soon learned that he has a brilliant, incredibly dry sense of humor.

When I first learned I would be working with Mike, I did a deep dive into his backlist and was riveted—as so many readers have been before and since—by his skill as a storyteller. He creates not only propulsive plots, but characters we care deeply about and come back to again and again. He also researches his stories as thoroughly as he did when he was an Los Angeles Times crime beat reporter—he cares about getting the nuances right. In my (admittedly biased!) opinion, he is, hands down, the best in the business.

The Lincoln Lawyer books have been critically acclaimed bestsellers. Why have the novels resonated with readers in such a big way?

To me, the Lincoln Lawyer novels read differently from the police procedurals in that, from the first page, there’s the sense of a puzzle or series of puzzles to be worked out, not only in the principal case in the book, but in the numerous smaller cases that are Mickey Haller’s bread and butter. He’s often an underdog figure representing underdog clients, and so it’s thrilling to see how he will use legal maneuvering—and sometimes sheer chutzpah—to make things go his way.

What makes Mickey Haller, the dynamic lead character, such a standout? And how has he evolved over the years?

Despite his bold and confident demeanor, Mickey Haller is usually a David battling Goliaths, and it’s always exciting to cheer on the guy who has the odds stacked against him, yet keeps snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. And though he can come across as brash and cynical, Mickey genuinely cares about getting justice for his clients and helping people when they’re down and out. That’s why he lets clients who can’t pay him work off their legal fees by driving him around while he works out of the back seat of his Lincoln.

Mickey also has a true character arc over the course of the series, as he evolves from mostly looking out for number one to going into public interest law and trying to help those the legal system has failed. Don’t get me wrong: He’s still fiercely competitive and willing to bend the rules to win—which is why he’s always so much fun to read about!

Michael Connelly is incredible prolific (38 previous books and counting!). What have been some of your favorite memories of working with him?

This is hard to answer, as there have been so many unforgettable moments. It was a joy to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the publication of his first novel, The Black Echo, in part because Mike has been with the same publisher—Little, Brown—for his entire career, and many people who had been there from the beginning attended that evening. I also vividly remember Mike giving me a tour of the set of the Bosch TV show and getting to sit in a detective’s chair in the squad room! But in truth, many of my favorite times have been sitting with Mike and his long-standing team in a green room or around a fully-laden dinner table and hearing stories from his many contacts in law enforcement. Many of these have eventually inspired future books!

In The Proving Ground, Mickey Haller goes after an AI company whose chatbot told a teen boy that it was okay to kill his ex. It’s a novel that’s scarily of the moment. What can readers expect from the book?

The Proving Ground has all the intrigue and shocking reversals that Lincoln Lawyer readers have come to love, but we also meet a Mickey Haller who’s a bit older and wiser, and who takes seriously his commitment, formulated in Resurrection Walk, to turn his talents toward making a positive difference. Fans will also be excited to find here another beloved Connelly character: investigative journalist Jack McEvoy, who is an expert on the perils of unregulated technology and who lends his expertise to the Haller dream team.

How would you characterize your experience working on The Proving Ground? And where does it rank among your favorite Lincoln Lawyer books?

As you say, the case in The Proving Ground is frighteningly timely, and even as I feverishly turned pages to see what would happen next, I found that I was learning a great deal about AI—how these models are trained and what can go wrong. Even in the weeks since Mike turned in the manuscript, there have been stories in the news that mirror the situations in the novel. As for “ranking,” it’s impossible to pick favorites among such a virtuosic body of work, but when I read one of Mike’s manuscripts with my heart in my throat, unable to put the pages down, and finish with the impulse to cheer for Mickey, but also to take a walk and keep thinking about the book, I know it’s a winner. That was very much my experience with The Proving Ground.

The Lincoln Lawyer books have been a hit in Hollywood. The Lincoln Lawyer was adapted into a 2011 movie starring Matthew McConaughey, and the franchise inspired a 2022 Netflix series. What makes the world so irresistible from a cinematic standpoint?

As many authors—and lawyers!—will tell you, the courtroom is an inherently dramatic environment, where lives or vast sums of money are on the line, there is a fair amount of obfuscation and posturing, and the skill of the attorney has a huge impact on the outcome. From Perry Mason onward, TV viewers have been drawn to these stories, but viewers today are very savvy and it’s ever harder to engage and surprise them. That’s why a series like The Lincoln Lawyer, which tells gripping and relevant stories and gets the behind-the-scenes details right, works so well. And it doesn’t hurt that it’s helmed by a hugely charismatic main character!

Is there anything you’d like to add that we haven’t asked?

Just that I hope readers will love The Proving Ground as much as I did, and will then engage with the Connelly universe and the vibrant fan community—through his website, social media, or annual book club, and by discovering his other series, both on the page and onscreen.