By MARILYN STASIO - New York Times - Published: December 16, 2011
Michael Connelly’s antic “Lincoln Lawyer” legal mysteries are great fun to read in the sun. But a Harry Bosch police procedural like THE DROP (Little, Brown, $27.99) is best saved for a dark, rainy night. Like maybe tonight. Illustration by Christoph Niemann
Bosch’s personal code of honor — “Everybody counts or nobody counts” — could be the mantra for the entire Open-Unsolved Unit of the Los Angeles Police Department, where a dozen detectives defy the odds by working to bring justice to some 10,000 cold cases dating back 50 years. By Bosch’s reckoning, even a creepy sexual predator like Clayton Pell counts. Advances in genetic profiling have linked Pell’s DNA to a sex-related murder committed in 1989, but since Pell was only 8 at the time, Bosch and his partner find themselves in the awkward position of trying to clear his good/bad name.
Connelly’s veteran detective finds it more of a challenge to apply his ethical code to a live case he’s been assigned: the suspicious death of a city councilman’s son, who took a header from the balcony of his room at the Chateau Marmont. Could be suicide. Could be an accident. Or murder. The bigger mystery is why the councilman, who has a vendetta against the Police Department and is an enemy of Bosch’s, insists that he take the case.
These are the kind of jobs — the ones involving dirty sex and dirty politics (“high jingo” is Bosch’s name for it) — that suit his dour disposition and support his cynical views of humanity. But he has his principles, and when a social worker he admires accuses him of lacking compassion for twisted guys like Pell, he comes back at her with a good answer: “I have compassion. My job is to speak for victims.”
Full review.
Published in NZ/Australia by Allen & Unwin. Earlier review on blog here.
Connelly’s veteran detective finds it more of a challenge to apply his ethical code to a live case he’s been assigned: the suspicious death of a city councilman’s son, who took a header from the balcony of his room at the Chateau Marmont. Could be suicide. Could be an accident. Or murder. The bigger mystery is why the councilman, who has a vendetta against the Police Department and is an enemy of Bosch’s, insists that he take the case.
These are the kind of jobs — the ones involving dirty sex and dirty politics (“high jingo” is Bosch’s name for it) — that suit his dour disposition and support his cynical views of humanity. But he has his principles, and when a social worker he admires accuses him of lacking compassion for twisted guys like Pell, he comes back at her with a good answer: “I have compassion. My job is to speak for victims.”
Full review.
Published in NZ/Australia by Allen & Unwin. Earlier review on blog here.