Starred review from March 17, 2003
Award-winning former crime reporter Connelly (The Black Echo; City of Bones) hits all the right notes with this latest in his Edgar-winning mystery series featuring sax-playing L.A. detective Harry Bosch. Even though this marks the ninth outing for Harry, the principled, incorruptible investigator shows little sign of slowing in his unrelenting pursuit of justice for all. Disillusioned by his constant battle with police hypocrisy and bureaucracy, Harry quits the department after 28 years on the job. Like so many ex-cops before him, he finds retirement boring: "I was staying up late, staring at the walls and drinking too much red wine." He decides to take advantage of his newly minted private-eye license and get back to work. The case he chooses—one that he had been briefly involved in four years before—is the puzzling unsolved murder of 24-year-old Angella Benton. Angella's death is linked to the theft of $2 million from a film company foolishly employing real cash as a prop on an action-movie set. Harry patiently follows the bloody trail from Angella's violated body through the Hollywood heist to the disappearance of an FBI computer expert and the shooting of two LAPD cops. His investigation eventually leads him to the elite terrorist hunters of the new Department of Homeland Security. Few will follow every twist and turn of the labyrinthine plot, but no matter. The fun comes in watching Harry slowly and brilliantly separate the seemingly impossibly knotted strands and then knit them back into whole cloth. This exciting procedural is as good as any in the series, and Connelly's concluding coda has a kicker about Harry's private life that will draw gasps of astonishment from longtime readers. (One-day laydown Apr. 1)Forecast:All the usual marketing and promotion jams have been kicked out on this one—television, radio and print advertising; transit ads; multicity author tour; postcards; etc.—which should push it to the top of the lists. Special bonus: fans at Connelly's readings will receive a compilation CD featuring Bosch's favorite jazz tunes.
December 1, 2002
Harry Bosch has retired, but he can't keep from taking on one last case.
Copyright 2002 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
January 1, 2004
Adult/High School-After more than 25 years with the L.A. Police Department, recently retired Harry Bosch decides to finish the murder investigation of Angella Benton, a case he had been quickly pulled off more than four years earlier. Gaining additional background information from a former colleague, now a quadriplegic as a result of having been shot during the investigation, Harry begins contacting any and all of the people who could have facts pertaining to the crime. He believes that the murder is tied to a film scene and $2 million in cash, and that the entire caper was ingeniously set up well in advance. With dogged determination, he risks his life more than once to prove his theory correct. Connelly expertly weaves the many complex story parts together, resulting in an action-packed ending. As in real life, all aspects of the case must be researched thoroughly, and the bulk of the novel involves the time-consuming, labor-intensive effort that goes into finding answers. Several subplots-including ones involving jazz, Harry's ex-wife, and another murder-help to round out characters, inject other interests, and relieve the intensity of solving the murder. Young adults who read true crime and forensics, or who are interested in police procedures, will surely pick this one up.-Pam Johnson, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 2003 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from February 15, 2003
When we last saw Harry Bosch--" City of Bones" [BKL Mr 1 02]--he had resigned from the LAPD after a particularly frustrating case involving the murder of an abused child. Harry's back, but he's still not wearing a badge. This time, prompted by a former colleague, Harry is trying to resurrect a cold case, the murder of a film company employee and the subsequent robbery of $1 million being used as a prop on a film location. Working as a private investigator without a client, Harry immediately falls into harm's way: the FBI wants him off the case, claiming ties to terrorism, and is willing to get rough if he doesn't comply. But Harry plays hardball, too, and he soon has enough leverage on the feds to keep digging. In crime fiction, cold cases never fail to hide multifaceted layers of wrongdoing. This one's no different, and Harry slogs his way through every new revelation, each more shocking than the one before. What Connelly does so well in this series is to contrast Harry's desperate need to play the role of the avenger with his growing realization that what he must do to play that role has alienated him from the human intimacy he craves. It isn't an uncommon theme in hard-boiled novels, but Connelly manages to rub it raw in a way that others can't quite equal. It's never pretty watching Harry edge toward connection with those he loves and then back away, drawn by the pain of others, but it just may be the most compelling train wreck in crime fiction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)
June 2, 2003
At the fade of Connelly's City of Bones, his hero, Harry Bosch, said goodbye to the Los Angeles Police Department he'd served loyally but unhappily for nine phenomenally successful novels, raising the question: what now? This new work provides the answer: Harry has embarked on a new career as a private detective. His first case involves a homicide that his LAPD superiors took away from him four years before, the still-unsolved brutal murder of a young woman that has continued to haunt him. He goes about his new business just as zealously and relentlessly as when he wore a badge, but its absence makes his job more difficult, especially when his solo sleuthing pits him against friends and foes on the LAPD, over-zealous anti-terrorist feds and a cadre of vicious killers. Connelly lets Bosch narrate the story, a somewhat hoary private eye device brought up to date by the author's compelling style. Reader Cariou, a veteran of Broadway (Sweeney Todd) and television (Law and Order; Murder She Wrote), has the timbre and talent to capture the sound and the moods of Harry: thoughtful, tough, driven yet surprisingly hopeful. His treatment of the other characters—from a raspy-voiced, paraplegic ex-cop to Bosch's disillusioned former partner Kizmin Rider—is nearly as effective. The quality of the narration plus the added production details—e.g., breaking the cassettes at chapter endings and bookending them with bluesy jazz riffs—result in an intriguing, suspenseful audio noir package, as dark and edgy as its hero-narrator. Simultaneous release with the Little, Brown hardcover (Forecasts, Mar. 17).
Starred review from April 1, 2003
Set a year after the events in City of Bones, Connelly's latest Harry Bosch novel finds Harry resigned from the Los Angeles police force but discovering that retirement is not his cup of tea. When an ex-cop confined to a wheelchair asks for Harry's help in solving an almost five-year-old crime, Bosch jumps at the opportunity. As he starts asking questions, his friends from the force tell him to back off. Then when the FBI threatens imprisonment, Harry realizes he is in over his head. To bring the perpetrators to justice, Bosch realizes that he is going to have to call in some favors. For the first time, Connelly has written a Bosch novel in the first person, adding extra insight and depth into an already well-established character. It's guaranteed that this novel won't get "lost" on the shelves; Connelly's Blood Work was recently made into a Clint Eastwood flick. Highly recommended for most popular fiction collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/02.]-Jeff Ayers, Seattle P.L.
Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.