Sunday, July 13, 2025
Tuesday, July 08, 2025
Mystery Fanfare: Ballard: New streaming series based on Michael Connelly's novels
Thursday, November 30, 2023
Review: Resurrection Walk: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel by Michael Connelly
Resurrection Walk: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel
by Michael Connelly splits the time between Bosch and his brother, Mickey
Haller. At its core, the novel is about a flawed justice system and trying to
get innocent people released. But, the read is far more complicated than that.
Mickey Haller is doing pretty well. He just got
Jorge Ochoa out after years of being wrongfully imprisoned for a crime he did
not commit and he likes the feeling that kind of victory. He enjoyed that
thrill of victory as Ochoa walked out, a sort of “resurrection walk.”
These days Bosch works for him so that he has
insurance. Bosch was going to let the cancer do what it did, but changed his
mind. Bosch is fighting, and when he isn’t in treatment, he is driving Haller
around and reading letters from inmates seeking help to overturn convictions.
It is their own version of the “Innocence Project”
and Bosch thinks he may have spotted a case worth looking at in greater detail.
Lucinda Sanz was convicted of manslaughter in the shooting death of her Los
Angeles County Deputy Husband. She pleaded nolo to manslaughter as a plea deal.
She has no idea who killed her husband in the front yard of their house, or
why, but she took the deal because her public defender said to do so. Now she urgently
needs to get out and back home to her son.
While Haller is doing various things, Bosch does
some poking around and is soon questioning the merits of the case against her. Overturning
her plea is going to be damn near impossible, but going to Federal Court might
be a step in the right direction. That case and the fight to get Lucinda Sanz
out of prison is the primary overarching storyline.
Other cases, Bosch’s cancer fight, and various ongoing
matters make up secondary storylines in a complex novel.
While the cancer fight is tough reading for those
of who have gone through it with a loved one, the overall novel does not spend
a ton of time in that storyline. Many things are going on in Resurrection
Walk: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel by Michael Connelly. The result is a
highly entertaining read that pulls the reader along at a rapid clip. The book
is well worth your time.
After the publisher skipped my NetGalley review
request, my reading copy came by way of the Libby/OverDrive App and the Dallas
Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2023
Wednesday, February 08, 2023
Tuesday, December 07, 2021
Review: The Dark Hours by Michael Connelly
After the fireworks and the gunfire finally ends, they get a
call to respond to a nearby shooting near the intersection of Sunset Boulevard
and Gower Street. Back in the day, it was where day labors were picked up to
work as extras in Westerns. These days, a faded shopping plaza sits on the spot
with walled off studio lots nearby. Across the street is a string of auto
repair shops and aging apartment complexes. It is the gang territory of Las
Palmas 13 and they will soon learn that their victim was once in the Las Palmas
13.
Many years ago, Javier Raffa, bought his way out of the
gang. In the here and now, he was owner of an auto body shop. Each year for
NYE, he would throw a neighborhood party and put out a keg for all. The headshot
he took this night means he won’t be around to host another. The headshot was
also clearly not because of a round coming back to earth.
Somebody executed Raffa at close range and did it while
everyone else in the crowd was looking skyward. Even more interesting, the bullet
involved traces back to a cold case of one Detective Harry Bosch. While he is
even more of a hot potato due to his recent actions, there is no option but to reach
out to Bosch and discuss the situation. She needs his help and has to get it as
quietly as possible in order not to totally destroy her own career.
At the same time, it is also clear that Moore is going to be
zero help, at best, and a definite hindrance at worst. The two are paired as part
of the hunt for a pair of serial rapists known as the “Midnight Men.” The
horrible attitude expressed in so many ways by Moore reflects the ongoing malaise
affecting many in the LAPD. Moral is in the toilet that to the protests, the pandemic,
and various other factors that getting Moore and many other officers to do more
than the minimum is problematic. So, basically, Ballard is on her own on the rape
case and is pretty much on her own on the murder case because using Bosch comes
with limits and severe consequences.
But, like Bosch, Ballard only knows one way to do the job.
Screw the politics, build cases, and get the bad folks off the street. What follows
is an intense police procedural that works by the way of several different
storylines. Multiple cases and other matters are slowly brought together in a
read with a powerful ending. One would expect nothing else from the author and
he more than delivers in The Dark Hours.
The Dark Hours
Michael Connelly
https://www.michaelconnelly.com/
Little, Brown and Company
https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/michael-connelly/the-dark-hours/9780316256568/
November 2021
ISBN# 978-0-316-48564-7
Hardback (also currently available in audio and eBook
formats)
400 Pages
My reading copy came from the Downtown Branch of the Dallas Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2021
Sunday, July 11, 2021
Saturday, June 26, 2021
Tampa Bay Tribune: A fond and fearless goodbye to ‘Bosch’
In recent weeks, I have read a lot of pieces that indicated that the new series that is currently being filmed would be set around Ballard. The implication of this spoiler filled article is otherwise.
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