Showing posts with label harry bosch series. Show all posts
Showing posts with label harry bosch series. Show all posts
Saturday, September 02, 2017
Crime Watch: Review: TWO KINDS OF TRUTH
Crime Watch: Review: TWO KINDS OF TRUTH: TWO KINDS OF TRUTH by Michael Connelly (Orion, 31 October 2017) Reviewed by Craig Sisterson Harry Bosch is back as a volunteer wo...
Tuesday, January 03, 2017
Review: The Wrong Side Of Goodbye: A Bosch Novel by Michael Connelly
While he has spent most
of the last year suing the LAPD over his forced retirement, these days Harry
Bosch is a private detective when he isn’t working as a reserve officer for the
San Fernando PD. Bosch works for free as the small department does not have the
funds to pay him. For Bosch it is a chance to wear the badge and work any of
the city’s many unsolved cases. One of the cases Bosch is working on is the
serial rapist case as the “Screen Cutter.” That case is the prominent secondary
storyline of The Wrong Side Of Goodbye.
Bosch got the job at
SFPD because of his old LAPD contacts. He gets his private detective jobs by
way of referrals. Sometimes those referrals happen by the way of his former colleagues.
While he might be an enemy of some in LAPD who are angry over the lawsuit there
are plenty of others folks very aware that nobody is a better detective then
Bosch on a case.
That ability and
those contacts lead him to a meeting with the 85-year-old reclusive billionaire
Whitney Vance. Creator and owner of Advance Engineering, Whitney Vance expanded
the family legacy considerably from a modest start dating back during the California
gold rush. Whitney also believes he may have expanded the family legacy another
way-- by fathering a child.
While in film school
at USC in 1949, he met someone. Hispanic and underage, she was not somebody
that the family would appreciate. They had a brief relationship and she became
pregnant. After Whitney told his father, who was convinced that the young woman
was looking to become a married citizen, certain people talked to her about not
having the child. She then vanished and Whitney has no idea what happened to
her or the baby.
Whitney’s independence
was now over as his father had leverage on him to make him conform. She was
under age so there was that potential legal issue as well as the family
embarrassment if the story cane out and was public. He did as he was told and
left film school and transferred to Cal Tech. Eventually graduating and further
expanding the family legacy.
All these years later,
he can tell Bosch little at this point other than her name, Vibiana Duarte, and
that she used to work at the student cafeteria known as “Everybody’s Kitchen.”
Those facts and a couple of others give Bosch enough to go on. That hunt for
the heir becomes the prominent storyline of The Wrong Side Of Goodbye.
This latest book in
the Bosch series is far more straightforward than earlier books in the series.
Bosch divides his time between both cases, with occasional side excursions to
see or call his daughter, as the pages fly by. There is zero character development
for anyone in the novel as Bosch and his family were fleshed out long ago. Even
characters new to readers are barely more than cardboard cutouts and interchangeable
as spare parts. Instead, it is about the hunt for a rapist and the heir.
It wouldn’t be a
Bosch novel without a bit of workplace friction. That function is served here
by having Bosch work in the San Fernando PD under a boss that has a bit of a bureaucratic
bent. It isn’t surprising that Bosch flaunts a rule that he sees as petty only
to have it become an issue for another character. The reader that pays
attention to detail will see the setup for this coming a mile away.
Overall, the latest
Bosch novel is a good one. Though it lacks the complexity of some of the earlier
novels and a couple of the twists are a bit obvious, The Wrong Side Of Goodbye is
a good read. The only real problem is that this read is nowhere near the high
bar this author consistently set for most of this very entertaining series. Good
on its own, The Wrong Side Of Goodbye, does not come close to the books
earlier in the series.
The Wrong Side Of Goodbye: A Bosch
Novel
Michael Connelly
Little, Brown And Company (Hachette
Book Group)
November 2016
ISBN# 978-0-316-39675-2
LARGE PRINT Hardback (also available in
hardcover, eBook, paperback and audio)
555 Pages
$31.00
Material supplied by
the good folks of the Plano Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2017
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Review: "The Crossing: A Bosch Novel" by Michael Connelly
It has been approximately a year
since the events of The
Burning Room and these days find Bosch retired, suing the LAPD over
the retirement and other issues, and spending his time working on restoring his
vintage motorcycle. He should be spending his days working homicide cases.
That is exactly what his half-brother
Mickey Haller wants him doing. Part of that is by helping Bosch with his
lawsuit against the department. Another part of that would be convincing Bosch
to work for him as an investigator. Mickey Haller, known to one and all as “The
Lincoln Lawyer,” has no idea how strongly Bosch feels about such a move. To do
that, to slip over and work for the defense (the dark side), would betray
everything Bosch has ever stood for as a detective with his three decades plus
with the LAPD. .
Haller’s client is a man by the name
of Da’Quan Foster. A reformed man,
Foster is sitting in jail on a murder charge and Haller is sure he did not do
it. Haller is positive that his client is a pillar of the community these days and
is willing to deal with the consequences if Bosch proves otherwise. All he wants
right now is for Bosch to look over the case and offer an opinion. The problem
for Bosch, more than being asked to crossover and work for the defense to help
set a man free, is that if Foster is innocent the wrong man is in custody. The idea that a killer might be out there
walking free is a small possibility and the only reason Bosch takes a look. It does
not take him long to determine that there are questions and inconsistencies in
the prosecution case and, at the very least, some sloppy police investigative
work.
The Crossing: A Bosch Novel is another solidly good book from author Michael Connelly
who has been doing this a long time. Part police procedural and part mystery,
the read moves rapidly as Bosch, working without the legitimacy of the police
department, has to finagle and nuance his way through an increasingly complex
case. A case that ultimately leads to one of the best climatic endings in this
series to date.
While events earlier the series are
briefly referenced one could read this first if you are new to the series. If
you are, why have you waited so long?
The Crossing: A Bosch Novel
Michael Connelly
Little, Brown and Company (Hachette
Book Group)
November 2015
ISBN# 978-0-316-22588-5
Hardback (available in e-book and
audio formats)
400 Pages
$28.00
Material supplied by the good folks
of the Plano Public Library System who may or may not have known I would review
the book after reading it. They just want the book back intact.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2015
Thursday, February 05, 2015
Via Crime Watch: Michael Connelly and Titus Welliver talk about "Bo...
Crime Watch: Michael Connelly and Titus Welliver talk about "Bo...: Tonight, the highly anticipated Amazon Prime series, Bosch , will premiere in London, after the LA premiere yesterday. Both Michael Connel...
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Review: "The Burning Room" by Michael Connelly
The end is near for LAPD Detective Harry Bosch. He
has less than a year to the end of his career and isn’t sure what the future
holds. His latest case in the Open-Unsolved Unit (cold cases) features a victim
who just died though he was shot over ten years ago. The bullet that ripped
into Orlando Merced that fateful day did not kill him outright. Instead it
lodged into his spinal column making him a paraplegic and a repeat customer of
the medical system.
He also became a political cause for a certain
mayoral candidate. While that candidate is no longer Mayor, politics is a major
reason why Bosch and his new partner Lucy Soto got the case. Politics is also
why Lucy Soto is paired with Bosch. That pairing and Bosch’s willingness to
help his partner is why another case will take precedence for large sections of
the book.
The latest in the long running series, The
Burning Room is a complicated and yet fast moving read. While some have
again criticized the evolution of the character and have claimed the author is
phoning it in or has hired a team of ghost writers, neither is the case for
those readers that are aware that the Bosch character has continued to evolve
over 19 books. Inevitably those commenters seem to be longing for a book that
appeared a decade or so ago and Bosch is now a far different character than he
was then.
Life has happened and while Bosch still clearly
feels moral outrage and disgust his actions in regards to both are considerable
more subtle in recent reads than a decade ago. He is also not surprised by anything
a politician does at this point in his long career that has shown him repeated
examples of the worst of the human condition. Despite the usual richness in
detail there is a clear distantness to the novel as Bosch begins to wind down a
career he so clearly loves. A very good read in all aspects the book leaves the
reader wondering what the future holds for the beloved character as well as his
creator.
The
Burning Room
Michael
Connelly
Little,
Brown and Company (Hachette Book Group)
November
2014
ISBN#
978-0-316-22593-9
Hardback
(also available in large print, e-book and audio editions)
401
Pages
$28.00
Material
supplied by the good folks of the Plano Texas Public Library system who don’t
care what I say in a review. They just want their book back.
Kevin
R. Tipple ©2014
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Bosch Series Picked Up
Per a piece in Variety found here the Bosch series and three others have been picked up. Should be interesting.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Review: "The Black Box" by Michael Connelly
“He knew that occurrences of twenty years ago or
longer were now coming together at an undeniable speed. The hand of the past
was reaching up through the ground, and there was no telling who or what it
would grab and pull down when it finally broke through the surface of the
earth.” (Page 434--Large Print Version)
As Los Angeles burned in 1992 Detective Hieronymus “Harry”
Bosch and Detective Jerry Edgar, along with two police officers as protection,
were sent from one location to another as the bodies dropped. With the city in chaos and the National Guard
as backup, little could be done at each body besides the briefest of investigation
and detailing the scene. It was a war
zone in south central and latest casualty is a woman in an alley.
By the time Bosch and Edgar get to the dead woman it
is clear that she died a number of hours to a full day ago. It is also clear
she was shot through the head and died right there so the debris filled alley
is the crime scene. It is also a crime scene that they will have only minutes
to work before moving on to the next one.
It will be twenty long years before the case of
Anneke Jespersen, foreign correspondent, makes it to Bosch’s desk in the Open-Unsolved
Unit. That happened because the Police
Chief, always thinking of the media and politics, ordered a new look at all the
open cases from 1992. Labeled as the “Snow White” case, Bosch wanted it back because
he didn’t have a chance to do right by her the first time. He isn’t going to
let it go wrong again despite the efforts of others within and outside the Los
Angeles Police Department.
Michael Connelly’s twenty-fifth book and the latest one
in the Harry Bosch series is another good one. A series that began with The
Black Echo continues here in a novel that again features Bosch’s quest
for justice running head on into politics and agendas of others. Harry doesn’t
see race as he sees victims and their families. Families that need answers
regardless of the politics involved.
Politics, race, moneyed interests, and more Michael
Connelly staples are all here in The Black Box. So too is Harry Bosch, the dad and the
detective, trying to do the best he can at work and at home. The result is a
complex and very human mystery that works on all levels to provide yet another
satisfying read in this series.
The
Black Box
Michael
Connelly
Little,
Brown and Company (Hatchette Book Group)
November
2012
ISBN#
978-0-316-06942-7
Large
Print Hardback (also available as e-book, audio, regular type hardback)
550
Pages
$29.99
Material supplied by the good folks of the Plano,
Texas Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2013
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Review: THE DROP by Michael Connelly
“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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