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Avg. Rating: 4.54
Believable insights into big city police investigations
This is the third Michael Connelly novel, and the second featuring Harry Bosch, that I've read, and I continue to be impressed by this author's skill. In fact, I think I'm getting addicted to it, having read three of his books in a week's time. I've ridden Angel's Flight and am familiar with the basic L. A. area, so Connelly's descriptions definitely hit home. It's always enjoyable to be able to picture the areas mentioned through having been there. I'm becoming increasingly impressed with Connelly's description and perspective of investigations. The policemen in his books are not simple good and bad stereotypes. They are living breathing individuals, and the author is imminently fair in his portrayals. After reading a Bosch novel, it's easier to consider the different views of right and of wrong. Connelly makes it easier to have an insight into all the factors of police investigations and of the behaviours of the law enforcers. We can more easily see that it's not always that easy to determine what's right and what's wrong. In this particular novel, you find yourself admiring some aspects of the victim while seeing other aspects that are less admirable. And this is important to my own enjoyment of the story. Not to say that there aren't some characters that appear to have no redemptive qualities at all. But he is fair with most of the characters so that you can understand why they make some of the decisions and perform some of the actions they do. And of course, there is the constantly twisting and turning plot that's been in every Connelly book I've read yet. He hasn't yet failed to mislead me through part of a book...in fact, I went rather far afield in this one, certain that I saw through some of his misdirection. However, after being misled, I find that he has been playing fair. If you're looking for crime fiction that will make you think, that will challenge your deductive abilities and will also cause you to speculate on the ethical implications, you should enjoy this book.
Murder,mayhem,pedophiles, riots ,intrigue-it's all here!
This is the first Connelly book I have rated under 5 stars and I given much thought as to why, in my estimation, this is the case. The plot...the mystery...the ingenuity...everything is there.So what is missing? The Harry Bosch that I know and admire has changed.He is not the Harry I met in the tunnels of Vietnam in The Black Echo, and accompanied through Black Ice, Trunk Music, The Concrete Blonde and The Last Coyote. Although it is a magnificent read, somehow Michael has softened Harry and in doing so has lost his personality - has lost his ramrod features and his very nature. In my opinion, Connelly must get back on track and let Harry be Harry, and Michael be Michael. I read his story on his site (michaelconnelly.com), in which a man berates him, saying if he had children he would never write such graphic books about brutality etc., especially to children. And Michael says he did not understand until he had a child himself. I have children,and, of course, I would not want any evil to befall them, but that has nothing to do with what I read and where the real world is, where such things happen and where it is up to people like the old Bosch to make it right. I hope Michael will give us back the old Bosch in the next novel - the Bosch with the stregnth of character and yet the sweet,lonely vulnerability that made Bosch, the Bosch we know and admire. This is a book not to be missed, but one in which Michael misses the mark of the genius he has so wonderfully portrayed before.
Police detectives age, too
And so do authors. It's nice that authors can write about aging protagonists as they themselves pass through the decades.Apparently, movie actors and other entertainers have a harder time with this transition, because so much depends upon their appearance. We see authors only on the book jackets, usually, but some writers, like Janet Evanovich, decide to leave their protagonists at one age only. I think it's more realistic the way Connolly is doing it with Harry Bosch. Harry's a lot mellower now that he's retired, but he's still a bulldog about his mission in life, which has something to do with sticking up for the under "bull" dog. You'll like this book, if you have these same preferences. Living in Los Angeles helps to make everything near and dear also. Diximus.
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