The Proving Ground: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly, the Lincoln Lawyer is back with a case against an AI company whose product may have been responsible for the murder of a young girl.

Following his "resurrection walk" and need for a new direction, Mickey Haller turns to public interest litigation, filing a civil lawsuit against an artificial intelligence company whose chatbot told a sixteen-year-old boy that it was okay for him to kill his ex-girlfriend for her disloyalty.

Representing the victim's family, Mickey's case explores the mostly unregulated and exploding AI business and the lack of training guardrails. Along the way he joins up with a journalist named Jack McEvoy, who wants to be a fly on the wall during the trial in order to write a book about it. But Mickey puts him to work going through the mountain of printed discovery materials in the case. McEvoy's digging ultimate delivers the key witness, a whistleblower who has been too afraid to speak up. The case is fraught with danger because billions are at stake.

It is said that machines became smarter than humans on the day in 1997 that IBM's Deep Blue defeated chess master Garry Kasparov with a gambit called "the knight's sacrifice." Haller will take a similar gambit in court to defeat the mega forces of the AI industry lined up against him and his clients.

Author: Michael Connelly
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Published: 10/21/2025
Pages: 400
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.31lbs
Size: 9.48h x 6.34w x 1.33d
ISBN: 9780316563826


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 08/18/2025
Booklist 09/01/2025

About the Author
Michael Connelly is the author of forty previous novels, among them New York Times bestsellers Nightshade, The Waiting, and Resurrection Walk. His books, which include the Harry Bosch series, the Lincoln Lawyer series, and the Renée Ballard series, have sold more than eighty-nine million copies worldwide. A former newspaper reporter who has won numerous awards for his journalism and his novels, Connelly is the executive producer of four television series: Bosch, Bosch: Legacy, The Lincoln Lawyer, and Ballard. He spends his time in California and Florida.