Results tagged “Michael Connelly” from Reading
Misled by the reference in the blurb to Detective Bosch, I've instead ended up encountering The Lincoln Lawyer, who I'd been studiously avoiding on John Grisham (and work) grounds. Mitch Haller and his team are more interesting than I'd allowed for, but The Brass Verdict remains a legal story rather than a police procedural; and Bosch a more interesting character than Haller. I've started so I'll finish, but I'll not be going back for more.
Now finished, by way of another (cf The Secret Scripture) incredible (not in a good way) coincidence-heavy subplot ending.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Brass Verdict - Michael Connelly
It's back-to-back Bosch, still set in his (relatively) early years. There's a noticeably sombre note to The Last Coyote, with Harry's beloved house condemned and due to be demolished after an LA earthquake, and the relationship that emerged during The Conceret Blonde having bitten the dust. What's more, Harry has been suspended from duty for attacking a senior officer, and in therapy on pain of the ultimate sanction: dismissal.
Prompted by an early session with his therapist (we're not a million miles away from The Sopranos here) Bosch decides to look into the still unsolved murder of his mother. Orphaned at 12, Harry spent his teenage years in juvenile hall, before 'escaping' to military service in Vietnam.... and so this 30 year old murder utlimately underpins his solitary streak and maverick approach to solving crime.
In classic Bosch style, despite having had to hand in his badge and his gun, Harry calls in favours and bends the rules until he finally finds out the killer's identity. Excellent.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Last Coyote - Michael Connelly
I'm clearly into to a crime patch at present, what with Donna Leon, my first Val McDermid and even the so-so The Island of Lost Maps: A Story of Cartographic Crime.
Still, it's nice to come back to old friends like Connelly's Harry Bosch, particularly when you find them in an early part of their life. In The Concrete Blonde, Harry is on trial for the murder of Norman Church, the man LAPD had identified as a serial killer years back, and whom Harry had shot dead, he says in self defence. Fast forward a few years to the present, and LAPD are called in to investigate when the body of a blonde woman is found, buried under concrete poured after Norman Church's demise, but bearing all the signs of the original serial killer .... And then there's Harry's love life to consider...
Amazon.co.uk link: The Concrete Blonde - Michael Connelly
Another encounter with Harry Bosch, this time with a new partner and investigating the roadside shooting of a hospital doctor high up in the Hollywood Hills overlooking the mansions of the rich and famous. Although his maverick investigative style seems to be semi-sanctioned by the LAPD, the discovery that the murder related to the victim's access to radioactive cesium soon brings the involvement of the FBI and some elaborate twists and turns of the plot. A cracking crime read.
Amazon.co.uk: The Overlook - Michael Connelly
One of Michael Connolly's best crime novels featuring Harry Bosch.
In City of Bones Harry seems a much younger version of the grizzled, cynical, persistent and effective LAPD homicide detective than he must be in terms of when the book is written/set. He's still the jazz loving cop, with sidekicks Jerry Edgar and Kiz Rider, but there's no mention of his ex wife and child and instead the love interest focus is on rookie cop Julia Brasher who he meets investigating the murder of a child whose bones are unearthed in the Hollywood Hills.
Amazon.co.uk: City of Bones - Michael Connelly
From the Yemen to Los Angeles, for a rendezvous with Harry Bosch, himself returned to the LAPD and working alongside former cop partner Kiz Rider. This time round they are part of the Open-Unsolved Unit, doing what Harry and Kiz do best: solving old, cold cases - in this case, the murder of Becky Verloren, a high school student, 17 years previously.
Connelly's novel brings in the racial tensions of the late 1980s, in particular the institutional racism characterised by the police beating of Rodney King and the resultant race riots of 1992. Did the initial investigators deliberately overlook the fact that Becky was the daughter of a white mother and a black father, or were they persuaded to look elsewhere by Harry's nemesis, Irvin Irving?
There's also Becky's secret abortion to explain and the exact role petty criminal Roland Mackey played in 1988 - scientific advances have allowed the police to identify his DNA from a skin sample caught in the trigger of the gun that killed Becky.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Closers - Michael Connelly
One of Michael Connelly's better Harry Bosch novels, with the action, as well as drugs, moving between LA the US/Mexico border towns, and between good and bad cops inside and outside the local police forces.
As to where it fits in the overall timeline, I'm not entirely sure - but Harry's certainly having far more sex than in other novels, so I'd guess it's an earlier rather than later story! I'm also sure that there should be some significance to the "The" in the title, I just can't work it out.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Black Ice - Michael Connelly
Another excellent encounter with detective Harry Bosch in his first big case following his return to LAPD after an early retirements and stint as a PI. Again the story revolves around one of Hollywood's many open-unsolved cases - the disappearance and presumed murder of a young woman - which Harry first investigated 13 years previously; only now it looks like she was one of many victims of a serial killer.
A few familiar faces turn up to help out Harry in his quest to track down the murderer, and the truth - and given that politicians and elections come into the mix too Harry faces even more dirty double dealings (and plot twists and turns) than usual.
Amazon.co.uk link: Echo Park - Michael Connelly
Sod's law in operation as far as the timing of reading this Harry Bosch novel goes.... I'd already picked up that The Poet tells a key event in Harry's life and career but I'd not been able to find it at the library, and it turns out that The Narrows is, in effect, a sequel to The Poet. Anyway, The Poet will make interesting reading when I do lay my hands on a copy.
The key players are the serial killer known as The Poet, ex cop private eye Bosch and FBI agent Rachel Walling. As the FBI investigate a mass grave in the Nevada desert, Bosch and Walling are lured, by separate means and with differing motivations, towards the same spot - but the climax takes place back in Harry's LA heartland.
Our hero, Harry Bosch, has now retired from the LAPD; his years as a detective having made him well versed in the underbelly of Californian life. With time on his hands, and no one to share it with, he carries on sleuthing, looking into cold cases which his (former) fellow officers have no time to pursue. Harry's unofficial investigation into the murder of a young woman who'd worked in the film industry brings him into contact with a former colleague paralysed in the course of duty, the FBI, weathly film financiers... and although Harry ties up everything at the end, there's an unexpected twist which left me wondering where things would go next!
Amazon.co.uk tells me that Lost Light is book 9 in the Harry Bosch series, and that book number 2 (next on the library list) is The Black Ice, so that leaves at least seven more installments to track down, starting with The Black Echo. Plus I'd never realised Amazon had these "Series" pages.... very handy!
Amazon.co.uk link: Lost Light - Michael Connelly
Having read all of (now sadly departed) Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen novels, and being up to date with both Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone Alphabet and (to the best of my knowledge - my reading has been a bit hotchpotch here) Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta series, I am in need of some fresh crime fiction and a new detective hero/heroine.
I tried The Closers a few months ago but gave up after a few pages as the book needed to go back to the library, but I'd picked this one up for a pound at a S&S charity book sale, and found it much easier to get into. Set in LA, not a million miles from Kinsey Millhone's Santa Theresa turf, The Black Echo deals with a much darker world - the crimes investigated by the homicide team in the not so whiter than white LAPD.
In this novel, less than perfect Harry Bosch is digging into the drug-related death of a fellow Vietnam veteran and getting caught up in the more complex world of the FBI and sophisticated high value bank vault robberies.
If you like The Wire, then I think you'll like Harry Bosch.
And having just looked up the Amazon.co.uk link, I see that this is the first Harry Bosch novel. Excellent - no need to try to work out how best to backtrack to the start of the story... I just need to know which one comes next....
Amazon.co.uk link: The Black Echo - Michael Connelly