Review by Booklist Review
Because police detective Hieronymus ("Harry") Bosch is a loner, an outsider, not really part of the LAPD family, his story (the first effort of Los Angeles Times crime reporter Connelly) is a police procedural with little respect for procedure. Bosch senses something kinky about the body found, needle in arm, in a drainage pipe near Hollywood's Mulholland Dam, and his suspicions grow when he recognizes the victim as a "tunnel rat" he served with in Vietnam. Teamed with an enigmatic female FBI agent and tailed by a pair of less-than-brilliant internal affairs investigators, Bosch follows a trail with as many twists and turns as the underground tunnels where some of the novel's liveliest action takes place. Bosch's pursuit of his fellow tunnel rat's death reveals unexpected links between past and present, 'Nam and Los Angeles, corruption and bank robbery, and multiple murders. Despite occasional lapses, Connelly writes well, and his plot is strong enough to cover the fact that there are only a few well-developed characters. With a second Bosch not-so-procedural in the works and with national advertising behind this first title in the series, expect requests for The Black Echo. ~--Mary Carroll
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Connelly, a crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times , transcends the standard L.A. police procedural with this original and eminently authentic first novel. Hieronymus (Harry) Bosch--former hero cop bumped from the L.A. homicide desk to the lowly Beverly Hills squad--gets the call on a drug death at Mulholland Dam. Harry recognizes the corpse as that of a fellow soldier in Vietnam; both were ``tunnel rats'' who searched for Viet Cong in the network of burrows beneath Vietnamese villages. Investigation connects his old pal to an unsolved bank job--the vault was tunneled into from the storm drains below--and Harry takes his information to the FBI. The Bureau alerts the LAPD, which reactivates internal affairs surveillance (the previous IAD episode is explained throughout the narrative), only to have the FBI backtrack and request Harry as liaison on the case. Paired with beautiful FBI agent Eleanor Wish, Harry makes sense of the Vietnam connection to the bank job--a discovery that puts them both in danger from deadly ex-Marines and a powerful insider from either the LAPD or the FBI itself. Police higher-ups are somewhat cliched, but Connelly avoids L.A. stereotypes and delivers this front-page story with military precision. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Los Angeles police detective Hieronymus (a.k.a. Harry) Bosch discovers something odd in what appears to be a routine drug overdose case. The victim has a face from Harry's past, a fellow ``tunnel rat'' from Vietnam named Billy Meadows. Convinced that Meadows's death is really murder, Harry searches for the killers and soon clashes with the FBI, investigating Meadows for another reason. Trying to walk through a minefield of deception and corruption in high places, Harry works with FBI agent Eleanor Wish to solve the case before they both get killed. Whose tracks have to be covered at the cost of their lives? Fans of Joseph Wambaugh and William Caunitz will enjoy this realistically detailed police procedural. Connelly, a Pulitzer Prize-winning crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times , knows his turf well and demonstrates it in this complex and satisfying thriller. This one could very well hit the best-seller lists; highly recommended for any popular fiction col lection.-- Dean James, Houston Acad. of Medicine/Texas Medical Ctr. Lib. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by School Library Journal Review
YA-- Harry Bosch likes order, contends that there are no coincidences, and keeps meticulous records in his ``murder book.'' When the body of a former ``tunnel rat'' from Vietnam is found in a drainpipe, Harry is the detective on duty and is called to the scene. His identification of the body begins an investigation that leads to more murder, bank robbery, heroin, diamonds, and betrayal. Connelly's descriptions of autopsies, murder scenes, and police procedure are vivid and realistic. The use of acronyms and police jargon puts readers in the middle of the action. A real page turner with gutty realism and an unusual twist.-- Debbie Hyman, R. E. Lee High School, Springfield, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Big, brooding debut police thriller by Los Angeles Times crime-reporter Connelly, whose labyrinthine tale of a cop tracking vicious bank-robbers sparks and smolders but never quite catches fire. Connelly shows off his deep knowledge of cop procedure right away, expertly detailing the painstaking examination by LAPD homicide detective Hieronymus (Harry) Bosch of the death-scene of sometime junkie Billy Meadows, whom Bosch knew as a fellow ``tunnel rat'' in Vietnam and who's now o.d.'d in an abandoned water tunnel. Pushing Meadows's death as murder while his colleagues see it as accidental, Bosch, already a black sheep for his vigilante-like ways, further alienates police brass and is soon shadowed by two nastily clownish Internal Affairs cops wherever he goes--even to FBI headquarters, which Bosch storms after he learns that the Bureau had investigated him for a tunnel-engineered bank robbery that Meadows is implicated in. Assigned to work with beautiful, blond FBI agent Eleanor Wish, who soon shares his bed in an edgy alliance, Bosch comes to suspect that the robbers killed Meadows because the vet pawned some of the loot, and that their subsequent killing of the only witness to the Meadows slaying points to a turned cop. But who? Before Bosch can find out, a trace on the bank-robbery victims points him toward a fortune in smuggled diamonds and the likelihood of a second heist--leading to the blundering death of the IAD cops, the unveiling of one bad cop, an anticipated but too-brief climax in the L.A. sewer tunnels, and, in a twisty anticlimax, the revelation of a second rotten law officer. Swift and sure, with sharp characterizations, but at heart really a tightly wrapped package of cop-thriller clichés, from the hero's Dirty Harry persona to the venal brass, the mad-dog IAD cops, and the not-so-surprising villains. Still, Connelly knows his turf and perhaps he'll map it more freshly next time out.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
