The Proving Ground

Michael Connelly

NEVER one to shy away from tackling thorny topical issues head-on, superstar American author Michael Connelly puts Artificial Intelligence at centre stage in a coruscating blockbuster legal thriller which pits his dogged LA Lincoln Lawyer, Mickey Haller, against an AI tech company whose chatbot might have led to the murder of a young girl.

Welcome to The Proving Ground, a novel which feels scarily like it could be a story that could soon hit the headlines in a newspaper near you; a tale of unintended AI consequences – which some might claim was always going to be a risk – when technology takes over from humans, and gathers the potential to become a deadly weapon.

It’s a case that will test Haller to the limit, two years after his ‘resurrection walk’ which saw him leave behind criminal justice to step into the field of public interest litigation and is now discovering that filing civil lawsuits against wealthy, big tech firms can be just as menacing and dangerous as criminal law cases. With January’s devastating Los Angeles wildfires burning in the background, and exploring the fascinating territory between the work of journalists and lawyers, Connelly (pictured below) – whose Lincoln Lawyer books have become a hit Netflix series – is on brilliant form as he delves into every fascinating nuance and legal rabbit hole of a booming AI industry that is very much in the public eye.

Seasoned lawyer Mickey Haller is boldly following his new direction in the ‘supposedly genteel high-ceilinged courtrooms’ of civil practice but is already finding new levels of dirty work and dangers. He is filing a civil lawsuit against Tidalwaiv Technologies, an AI 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 teenage girl’s mother, Haller is up against Tidalwaiv’s ruthless twin brother lawyers, Marcus and Mitchell Mason, who are eager to keeping delaying the trial because the company is up for sale and the investors are hoping that one of the world’s giant tech firms will swallow them up. A very public and revealing trial and its outcome could mean the difference between millions or billions of dollars. As Haller delves into some disturbing truths about the mostly unregulated and exploding AI business, and the lack of training safeguards, he feels that he is ‘drowning’ in the deliberate tidal wave of paperwork that has been submitted by Tidalwaiv’s legal team and begins to fear he will stumble into the trial uninformed and unready.

But then journalist Jack McEvoy, who writes regularly about technology and how it can be turned against us, walks into Haller’s life and says he wants to be a fly on the wall during the trial in order to write a book about it. Haller agrees but first puts him to work going through the mountain of printed discovery materials in the case… and McEvoy’s digging ultimately delivers the key witness, a whistleblower who has been too afraid to speak up.

As the tech titans try to buy or bully their way out, the scale of the courtroom battle before them becomes clear because billions are at stake – along with countless lives – and it’s now a case with the potential to change everything.

Connelly’s reputation as one of the world’s most accomplished and consistently inventive authors shows no sign of waning as this new phase in Heller’s professional life opens a door into a very different – but equally compulsive – corner of American litigation in which our prickly and single-minded lawyer takes on one of the tech world’s biggest and most influential players. And in true Connelly style, riveting courtroom drama, behind-the-scenes skulduggery and breathtaking double-crosses take the major roles in a landmark case where the stakes run into billions of dollars and the ‘little man’ is up against the most overwhelmingly powerful opponents and odds.

And as a treat for Connelly’s army of fans, Haller and his trusty team are joined by investigative journalist McEvoy – star of the author’s hit books The Poet, The Scarecrow and Fair Warning – with the diligent, probing hack working in the shadows and providing the vital background skills and legwork to keep Haller’s case up and running.

With tensions and emotions running high in a case that has been born from a terrible tragedy, a searing and microscopic examination of the ethics and morals of an industry that is fast taking control of our lives, this is a story that goes well beyond the pages of a gripping courtroom thriller and asks questions about how we as humans want our future to look.
(Orion, hardback, £22)