“Everybody counts or nobody counts” has always been Detective Harry Bosch’s personal mantra. In THE DROP, the latest book in a series that began long ago with the excellent novel The Black Echo, Harry Bosch’s belief system and his trust in others are tested in new ways. Ways that will have him second guessing himself again and again before these two cases are over.
Bosch has 39 months to go before mandated retirement from the LAPD. He isn’t happy about forced retirement but understands the system and how things work. Partnered with Detective Chu, their latest case in the “Open-Unsolved Unit” is going to be a problem with potential wide ranging repercussions. DNA from a case dating back to 1989 has come in from the regional lab at Cal State. The DNA results are a match to a known sex offender by the name of Clayton S. Pell. Pell is a bad guy and has done a lot of various bad things over the years. The problem is that he was 8 years old when the murder case happened in 1989. If the lab received material contaminated by the “Open-Unsolved Unit, the cases involved are going to be tainted and careers at the very least will be over.
Why the DNA links to a sex offender who was 8 at the time of the murder is an urgent matter that gets the attention of Bosch and Chu. That is until the body of the son of city councilman Irvin Irving is found smashed into the ground outside a local hotel. Maybe it was suicide? Maybe it was homicide? No one has any idea in the early hours of the investigation. The councilman, who has a long standing antagonistic history with Bosch and the LAPD, wants Bosch on the case. 48 Year old George Thomas Irving is dead and thanks to the order of the current police chief, daddy is going to get his way. Politics drives priorities in any job and it certainly does here making the case priority number one.
The politics at work have been a major backdrop to each novel in this series and are very much the theme at the center of this novel. Both cases have the potential to be extremely high profile. While Bosch rarely plays politics and would rather focus on taking care of his teenage daughter and solve cases, others are okay with a whatever ends justify the means type of philosophy. For some in “THE DROP” Bosch’s code of “everybody counts or nobody counts” is meaningless as they just don't get it The result is an intensely good read as Bosch is forced again and again to not only reconsider the cases as events develop but to also consider those around him and their motives.
THE DROP
Michael Connelly
Little, Brown and Company (Hachette Book Group)
November 2011
ISBN# 978-0-316-18923-1
Hardback--LARGE PRINT
537 Pages
$29.99
Material supplied by the good folks of the Plano Texas Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple © 2012
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6 comments:
Thanks for the review, Kevin. Harry Bosch is a complex character who never gets boring, no matter how many cases we read about. Bosch is cool and so is Connelly.
Not ever boring, Al. That he is. I hope someday to meet Connelly and shake his hand.
Sounds like a good one, Kevin. Thanks.
You could read it and review it, Earl. :)))
Great review, Kevin. I've read all of Connelly's books, including The Drop. He never fails to entertain and impress. I met him at a signing and was so overwhelming I was stumbling over my words.
Thank you, Laura. I have a feeling I would lock up too on meeting him.
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