Finally, this
November, Michael Connelly's next Harry Bosch mystery is coming out! Can you
tell I'm excited?
For those of
you who haven't read any of the Bosch series (17 books with a minor appearance
in another Connelly novel), you're missing out.
Bosch is an
LAPD officer who's a bit curmudgeonly and slightly maverick. Plus, he's got an
impressionable teenage daughter at home so you know his stories will have more
depth than the average mystery. The author, Connelly, always does an excellent
job at blending plot and character, something I always look for in
mystery/suspense.
No, you
will not find any Michael Connelly works in your church library, (he does do a
fair amount of swearing and periodically has sexual situations) but, his works
are typically a fight of good vs. evil in addition to dealing with the shades
of grey in between. I've read all of Connelly's novels and, unlike so many
other authors in the general market, he does not denigrate Christians. He's occasionally had religious figures in his novels, and
they've always been treated with respect. So, maybe it's not church library material, but I have no qualms recommending his books to Christians.
So, if you enjoy a good police procedural,
if you're a fan of J. Mark Bertrand, Mark Mynheir, or Brandt Dodson, I
recommend you pick up a Harry Bosch mystery from Michael Connelly. You can find
his complete list of works on his website: http://www.michaelconnelly.com/extras/series/.
THE DROP
by Michael Connelly
Little, Brown and Company, November 2011
Harry Bosch has been given three years
before he must retire from the LAPD, and he wants cases more fiercely than
ever. In one morning, he gets two.
DNA from a
1989 rape and murder matches a 29-year-old convicted rapist. Was he an
eight-year-old killer or has something gone terribly wrong in the new Regional
Crime Lab? The latter possibility could compromise all of the lab's DNA cases
currently in court.
Then Bosch
and his partner are called to a death scene fraught with internal politics.
Councilman Irvin Irving's son jumped or was pushed from a window at the Chateau
Marmont. Irving, Bosch's longtime nemesis, has demanded that Harry handle the
investigation.
Relentlessly
pursuing both cases, Bosch makes two chilling discoveries: a killer operating
unknown in the city for as many as three decades, and a political conspiracy
that goes back into the dark history of the police department.
Michael Connelly is the author of the recent #1 New York Times bestsellers The Fifth Witness, The Reversal, The
Scarecrow, The Brass Verdict, and The Lincoln Lawyer, as
well as the bestselling Harry Bosch series of novels. He is a former newspaper
reporter who has won numerous awards for his journalism and his novels. He
spends his time in California and Florida.
Should I start at the beginning - which seems daunting with that many in the series - or is it okay to start with this new release (which is how I started with Vince Flynn in Pursuit of Honor)?
ReplyDeleteI'm a bad one to ask that, Nicole. When an author has a series of books, I always have to start at Book 1. Not having read The Drop yet, I couldn't tell you if it works as a standalone or not.
ReplyDeleteIf I were you, I'd start at Connelly's first Bosch book, The Black Echo, and decide if he's a character you'd like to follow. I think knowing Bosch from the beginning does help understand him in the later works.