Wednesday, June 16, 2021

Short Story Wednesday Review: A Fine Mist of Blood by Michael Connelly


A Fine Mist of Blood by Michael Connelly revolves around cold cases and a strange coincidence. For the past several years, slowly each case of the Open-Unsolved Unit (cold cases) has had all the paper records converted into digital files. By doing so, databases across crimes could be created and made searchable.  That means that links between cases and odd coincidences now become apparent as theses anomalies no longer fall through the cracks. One of those strange coincidences is a person named, Diane Gables.

 

Not only was she a witness in a homicide case back in 1999, she was also a witness in another more recent homicide case in 2007. Most folks go through the entire life without being a homicide witness. Somehow, she has been cited as a witness twice. If Bosch had not submitted the case to be digitized, the link never would have been found. It makes Diane Gables very interesting to Bosch as well as Detective Jerry Edgar of the Hollywood Division.

 


As long-time readers know, Jerry Edgar and Bosch have a long and complicated history. United together in A Fine Mist of Blood by Michael Connelly, the resulting case and short story is very interesting and highly enjoyable. 

 

This short story is in the anthology, Mystery Writers of America Presents Vengeance. Editor Lee Child, Mulholland Books, published in 2012. My reading copy came in paperback format from the Central or Downtown Branch of the Dallas Public Library System.


 

  

Kevin R. Tipple ©2021

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6 comments:

  1. Lastyear8:43 AM

    I'm surprised Connelly has yet to publish a collection of his short stories. I know some are bundled up in to short collections as e-books.

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  2. Kevin R. Tipple9:17 AM

    I am as well. The most I have seen from him in one eBook is three or so short stories. He has a couple of those out.

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  3. TracyK5:20 PM

    This sounds like a very good story. I need to read more of Connelly's books too. I have a lot of them but I have only read two of them.

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  4. Kevin R. Tipple6:33 PM

    He is so good. I enjoyed this brief visit with Bosh and Edgar.

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  5. Todd Mason9:54 AM

    I wonder how much hesitancy there is, with some popular novelists, to "test" their audience with collections of shorter work. At least till they have Stephen King-level follow-them-anywhere fan enthusiasm.

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  6. Kevin R. Tipple11:30 AM

    I do not know. I do know that there is tremendous pressure by publishing houses on folks to write a short story that they can add an excerpt to the upcoming novel and release a month or two before the new novel comes out. This fact is well known and why Linda Castillo, Paul Doiron, and others are doing it. Michael Connelly is big enough, especially due to the BOSCH series on Amazon, that he does not have to play that game.

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