The movie of the book of the movie…

I guess it shows how asleep at the wheel I truly am as I didn’t even realize Michael Connelly was due to release another novel this fall until I saw this news posted on the Deadly Pleasures website and this particular report:

In a seven-figure deal, Lakeshore Entertainment has picked up the movie rights to Michael Connelly’s upcoming crime novel "The Lincoln Lawyer" and will produce with Scott Steindorff’s Stone Village Pictures. Connelly is a brand name in the crime-fiction world, and his latest book, the serial-killer thriller "The Narrows," is on the best-seller charts. His novel "Blood Work" was adapted into a 2002 film that starred and was directed by Clint Eastwood. "Lawyer" concerns an attorney with a questionable set of ethics and an old Lincoln Town Car as his office. He discovers that a man he put on death row for murder is innocent and the man he currently is defending is the real killer. The book is scheduled to be released in the fall with a 500,000-copy first printing.

This does prompt a few questions: is the book actually finished yet? Were the movie rights sold based on a proposal (or even less?) and why does the book need to be released this fall instead of, oh, early next year? (Never mind the 2002-style deja vu with CITY OF BONES and CHASING THE DIME…)