Michael Connelly is one
of those few writers whose books I feel compelled to devour as soon
as they appear, and it was somewhat chilling to realise that this has
been the case almost since his first, The Black Echo, was published
some twenty years ago. Since then, Harry Bosch has featured in
seventeen novels, not always as the lead character, but he is the
lead in the The Black Box, which is the eighteenth, and which is set,
not by coincidence, in 1992, to mark the anniversary of the first
book.
Its set in the present,
but the cold crime Bosch investigates is a case he had drawn twenty
years before, the murder of a Danish photo-journalist in the midst of
the Rodney King riots. The chaos facing the LAPD at that time meant
Bosch couldn't delve fully into the killing at the time, and no one
else did either. But the characteristic that most defines Bosch is
his desire to bring justice to those who've been denied it, so he
begins retracing the steps his two-decades younger self took. He's
trying to unravel two mysteries: who killed Anneke Jespersen, and
why.
Soon it becomes
apparent that Jespersen wasn't collateral damage of the LA riots, and
the trail Bosch then follows leads back not only to the LA of that
time, but to the first Iraq war. The beauty of what might be
considered a story-telling 'gimmick' is that it fits perfectly not
only with the situation Connelly has created (Bosch on the Open
Unsolved Unit) but also with the character which he has built so
carefully and thoroughly over the past two decades. Even when the
settings or situations seem unlikely, his Bosch remains a person who
has sometimes grown and sometimes not over the years.
This paradox is
probably the best part of the novel—as always, Harry cannot resist
going off alone, doing what he thinks is right, and overlooking or
sometimes not even being aware of the consequences. Of course, this
is more perilous when you're a single father with a teenaged
daughter, but it also applies when Bosch tries to do something
thoughtful for his new girl-friend, psychologist Hannah Stone, and it
winds up bouncing back to bite him professionally, and quite possibly
on a personal level as well.
Connelly has gone back
in time in other ways too. Bosch tends to be most interesting when he
has a corporate foil (remember Harvey '98' Pounds?) which was what
his new boss, Lt. Cliff 'Tool' O'Toole provides. It puts added
tension into virtually all Bosch's decisions—on top of his added
vulnerability with retirement staring him in the face. Throw in an
inscrutable IAD detective on his case, and Bosch faces problems
inside the department which are possibly harder to solve that a
twenty year old murder. But of course, once Harry uncovers the
'Black Box' at the heart of the case, he will move forward to
discover the truth. The finish is more action thriller than some, but
the beauty of it is that again it recalls Bosch's part—the Vietnam
experience which was such a shadow over the early Bosch novels.And it ends with perhaps the finest piece of self-examination we've yet received from Harry.
Music has always been a
part of Bosch's story too, and in this novel, along with a huge nod
to Art Pepper (as you'd expect, since the alto player represents the
essence of Harry's dark and solitary LA soul) Connelly gets in plugs
for younger jazz artists: Michael Formaek, Danny Grissett, Gary
Smulyan, Seamus Blake, and Grace Kelly (not the princess). So now
I'll have to check them out.
Speaking of Pounds, it wasn't quite twenty
years ago that I reviewed Connelly's Trunk Music, in which he is the victim, for the Spectator, and said this
was the finest detective series being written in America. Nothing
Michael Connelly has written since then has led me to change my mind,
and The Black Box once again confirms it.
The Black Box by
Michael Connelly
Orion Books, £18.99,
ISBN 9781409134312
Note: this review will
also appear in Crime Time (www.crimetime.co.uk)
1 comment :
Thank you for this. For some reason I never read Connelly, so I took a punt and got a second-hand omnibus edition of the first three Bosch books following this recommendation - and I'm now working my way through the fourth omnibus! A real pleasure to find such a solid crime writer - and to have such a lot of books to catch up on. Thanks.
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