Novel Anticipation ... The Drop

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.

http://www.michaelconnelly.com/

Colton Parker Mystery Series

Original Sin (2006), 276 pages
Seventy Times Seven (2006), 276 pages
The Root of All Evil (2007), 288 pages
The Lost Sheep (2007), 288 pages

by Brandt Dodson

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Fired by the FBI and newly widowed, Colton Parker is a private detective who, in the midst of trying to investigate his first case, is also struggling to deal with the single parenthood thrust upon him. His “cowboy” style of justice frequently leads him into more trouble and, all too often, drives him further away from his thirteen year old daughter. What is made evident, throughout these books, is that Parker’s investigations parallel his search for God.

Brandt Dodson has created a unique character for Christian fiction. Perhaps his most unique characteristic is that Colton Parker is not a Christian, nor does he experience the “Damascus” type of conversion that is prevalent in much Christian literature. Yet he is surrounded by people who are taking the “walk across the room” to gently teach him about Christ. He is learning to listen, but is not yet ready to take the message to heart.

The books are detailed, well thought out, and suspenseful. It is clear that the author has connections in law enforcement (see biography following review).

I find the Colton Parker character to be very similar to a famous character in popular literature: Michael Connelly’s Hieronymous (Harry) Bosch. Both characters experienced a similar childhood, growing up in foster homes thus engendering a loner persona. Bosch is a member of the LAPD homicide division and is known for his rough and tumble, going out of the box style of policing—similar to that of Colton Parker. Both Parker and Bosch struggle with personal issues which seem to be the driving force behind their desire to see that justice is served. Thus, showing their very human side.

The big difference is in the telling of their story. Typical of secular literature, the characters in Connelly’s novels find difficulty speaking without lacing the dialogue with profanity. An encounter with a member of the opposite sex usually find the characters in bed. They are not books I would recommend for my fourteen year old daughter.

Conversely, Dodson’s Colton Parker character is definitely imperfect, but the reader doesn’t have to wade through the muck of cursing and bedroom scenes to understand that point.

What we find at the end of the Colton Parker mysteries is a message of hope, a message that is frequently absent in literature today.