As I write, more than 20 lawsuits have been filed against the company OpenAI over the alleged misbehavior of its chatbot, ChatGPT. (I could find none against Anthropic’s Claude.) Doubtless, more will surface as time goes on, especially in the face of fast-growing reports that AI has hacked private and governmental websites. So, it’s timely to a fault for one of America’s leading crime novelists to take on the issue in a novel. And what a novel it is! Michael Connelly’s The Proving Ground, the eighth book featuring the “Lincoln Lawyer” Mickey Haller, is the story of a face-off in a Los Angeles courtroom with an artificial intelligence company whose chatbot has persuaded a 16-year-old boy to murder his girlfriend. The book is filled with twists and turns leading to an explosive conclusion. It’s Connelly at his best.
A chatbot persuades a teenager to kill his former girlfriend
Two years earlier Mickey Haller had left behind his days as the Lincoln Lawyer. Working out of an office located in an LA warehouse instead of his Lincoln town cars, he had turned to public interest litigation. Now he has taken on a case to go after an artificial intelligence lab named Tidalwaiv, and the matter had gone to trial. The company “was for sale and its investors were hoping one of the big techs would swallow it. . . This trial and its outcome could be the difference between millions and billions.” But Haller’s client, Brenda Randolph, is not interested in the money.
Randolph’s daughter Rebecca was shot in a school parking lot by her former boyfriend, Aaron Colton. The 16-year-old boy had spent hundreds of hours talking to Tidalwaiv’s chatbot Clair, which . . . even gave him the combination to his father’s gun safe.” And Haller knows that Randolph “wants what I call a triple-A settlement: accountability, action, and apology” from Tidalwaiv. Of course, the company is only willing to settle for cash, and not very much of it. With no explanation or apology forthcoming.
The Proving Ground (Mickey Haller #8) by Michael Connelly (2026) 387 pages ★★★★★
A complex case peopled with believable characters
Connelly steadily builds suspense as he introduces a number of other characters. First, there are Haller’s two reliable aides, his biker investigator Dennis (“CIsco”) Wojciechowski and Cisco’s wife, who is also Haller’s ex-wife and now his office manager, Lorna Crane. Then, as Haller finds himself buried in 12 terabytes of data from Tidalwaiv, he brings on technology writer writer Jack McEvoy to analyze the material. Then come, one after another, Tidalwaiv employees, former and current, including Rikki Patel, a coder who turns up dead of an alleged suicide. Patel had been a possible whistleblower. We also meet Aaron Colton’s parents, who eventually decide to join the suit as Haller’s clients. Later we encounter Tidalwaiv’s former ethicist, Naomi Kitchens, who is deathly afraid that the company will come after her if she cooperates in the suit.
All these circumstances come to light gradually as the case slowly moves forward in a Los Angeles courtroom. Haller faces off against the twin attorneys hired by Tidalwaiv, constantly suspicious that the company has been surveilling them and attempting to bug their premises. Meanwhile, Haller’s ex-wife Maggie McPherson, now the Los Angeles District Attorney, loses her home in a wildfire. She moves back in with Haller, and their relationship begins to rekindle. And, to complicate matters further, another, unrelated case lands on Haller’s desk, distracting him at times from the main event.
The story is complex but nowhere difficult to follow. Michael Connelly is a master at writing stories like this.
Just the facts, ma’am
To date, so far as I can find, no court has found that ChatGPT or any other artificial intelligence company has induced anyone to commit murder. However, there are two cases where lawsuits allege it played a role in murders committed by ChatGPT users. Neither has gone to trial. In both cases, the killer died by suicide, so there was never a criminal trial of the perpetrator. But civil lawsuits have been brought against against OpenAI.
That includes 37 lawsuits from victims, families, students and staff of the Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in British Columbia. There, a shooter killed five students and a staff member after murdering their mother and half-brother at home. Also, British Columbia’s provincial government filed suit in US federal court on September 21, 2026, bringing claims of negligence, product liability, and failure to warn.
The circumstances Michael Connelly portrays in The Proving Ground are much cleaner and make for a stronger case than anything that has transpired to date in reality.
About the author
Michael Connelly has emerged in the front rank of crime novelists with 42 novels featuring LAPD Detective Harry Bosch, attorney Mickey Haller, and other characters. Connelly was born in Philadelphia in 1956 and educated at the University of Florida. After he began a career in Florida as a reporter, he moved to California for a job at the Los Angeles Times in 1987. He has lived in LA ever since. Connelly is married and has one child.
For related reading
I’ve also reviewed:
- The Reversal – Mickey Haller #3 (A master of the mystery genre struts his stuff in a new Mickey Haller novel)
- The Gods of Guilt – Mickey Haller #5 (A brilliant courtroom drama about the Lincoln Lawyer)
I’ve also reviewed the first of the Harry Bosch series at The Black Echo (Michael Connelly’s first Harry Bosch novel: the backstory), followed by reviews of many other books in the series.
You’ll find other great reading at:
- 17 fascinating courtroom dramas reviewed
- 5 top Los Angeles mysteries and thrillers
- Top 10 mystery and thriller series
- 30 good books about artificial intelligence.
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