Monday, October 22, 2012

The Black Box -- Michael Connelly

It's been 20 years since Harry Bosch appeared on the scene.  Hard to believe, right?  You'll be glad to know that he hasn't mellowed a bit and that The Black Box is another great case.

Connelly is celebrating the 20 years by having Bosch work on a cold case, one that started during the L. A. riots of 1992.  A woman was murdered, and because of the confusion and turmoil of the time, her case was never given any attention.  Just another random victim of the riots.  Now, given only the very slenderest of leads, Bosch is following it up, and before long he's sure that the victim wasn't random at all. She was killed deliberately and for a reason.

One of the pleasures of the Bosch series is the attention to procedure, and there's plenty of that here as Bosch follows the leads and pieces things together and looks for the "black box," the one key thing that will make everything fall into place.  But that's never all there is.  Once again, Bosch is in conflict with his bosses.  He's being investigated by Internal Affairs (or whatever it's called now).  He's having relationship problems. 

I had fun seeing a couple of people I know (Steve Stilwell, Larry Gandle) tuckerized in this one.  All in all, another highly satisfactory outing for everybody's favorite cop.  Check it out.

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