Wednesday, June 30, 2010

A Darkeness More than Night - Michael Connelly (Harry Bosch Series #7)

In the latest Harry Bosch installment, Connelly, brings in characters from a couple of his other stand-alone novels. Terry McCaleb, an ex-cop from Blood Sport, has retired to Catalina to raise his family following a heart transplant. Jack McEvoy, from The Poet and The Scarecrow, also makes an appearance as a meddling journalist. This book initially tracks two separate stories. In the first, McCaleb is brought out of retirement to consult on the macabre murder of a suspect Bosch showed particular interest prior to his death. In the second story, Bosch is testifying as the primary law enforcement officer at the trial of a famous Hollywood director charged with murdering one of his actresses. The two stories come together when McCaleb begins to suspect Bosch in his investigation, and Bosch is left to crack the case and prove his own innocence. Perhaps this is true in most police stories (and sadly, real life), but Connelly's books seem full of officers who jump to conclusions and then wear blinders that prevent them from objectively viewing any evidence that points them in a different direction. I find it wholly infuriating, and it always seems to lead to an extraneous death or some other unfortunate outcome that could have been avoided if the officer had just done their actual job instead of being lazy. But still, I read on...

1 comment:

Rob said...

I liked this, but could see where it was going relatively early. The two character structure strongly implied who the actual culprit would be -- still it was informative to see Bosch from an outsider's perspective.

Interesting, the narrator on the audiobook represented Bosch as having a Clint Eastwood-like growl.