City of Bones by Michael Connelly
City of Bones, by Michael Connelly, is another of the Harry Bosch novels.
Bosch is a detective in the Hollywood branch of the Los Angeles Police Department.
He has a tendency to confront his superiors and disregard procedures, but it usually works out because his detective instincts are so good and his self-preservation instincts are just good enough.
And of course because his superiors, being insiders in the L.
A.
P.
D.
are so often corrupt.
The story opens with the discovery of a human bone, brought back by a dog to its owner while on a walk.
The resulting search leads to a child's body that had been buried for over 20 years.
Upon examination, they discover that the child had been brutally beaten for many years before finally being killed.
The story is primarily the story of Bosch's investigation of the murder and eventual location of the murderer.
"City of bones" is the description of the grid the archeologists in the story impose on an excavation as they methodically and painstakingly unearth and reconstruct the bones they have discovered.
Los Angeles, which is located near or over the La Brea Tar Pits, is also referred to as the City of Bones because the tar pits lured so many animals to their deaths only to disgorge their bones several thousand years later.
Scientists have also discovered the skeleton of an early human who appears to have been murdered and deposited into the tar pits as long as 9,000 years ago.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
What I love about Connolly's writing, other than his colorful language, superb ear for idiom, and sophisticated literary knowledge, is the tautness of the story line and his ability to weave in subplots without losing momentum or urgency.
When Bosch is on a case he works long hours late into the night, and I found it just as hard to put down the book.
In this case there are two stories which unfold during the investigation, the life and family story of the murdered boy, and a love story between Bosch and another police officer (Julia Brasher).
Both of these stories are profoundly disturbing in their own ways.
Discovering the life of the murdered boy is possibly more important to the tale as a whole, and certainly more disturbing, than discovering the cause of his death.
I did find the love story unsatisfying in the final analysis.
Brasher was too strong, and way too cool, to meet the end she apparently did.
What definitively happened is not clear in the final analysis, but if Bosch's take on it is correct (and let's face it, his conclusions are rarely wrong), Brasher was the victim of a sort of accidental suicide.
That is, she intentionally shot herself and inflicted the wound, but it killed her by a sort of fluke.
That sort of suicide would be an interesting counterpoint or comparison to the "changed-my-mind" suicide which is the opening scene of the novel, but I found the background psychology unconvincing.
I had not observed the development in her of the virulent "us-vs.
-them" mentality that Bosch said he saw, which would have been necessary to support her willingness to murder a suspect as she seemingly planned to do.
Again, she seemed far too cool, too sophisticated, and too emotionally flexible for such a rigid and heartless mentality to have developed in such a short time.
On the whole, Brasher's character left more questions than answers for me.
With the possible exception of the way Julia Brasher was handled, Michael Connolly's grasp of the psychology of all the characters in the story is deft.
Most of the characters are not deeply explored-they exist mostly only to play the roles they do in the story-and yet they are interesting and suggestive.
They are realistic enough to carry the plot, and that is enough.
Connolly is often compared to Raymond Chandler, and I believe the comparison is apt, but the characters are not quite as stark, and you do get to know them a little better than Chandler's characters.
Not many people like Bosch, and it's easy to see why, but Connolly lifts the curtain just enough for the reader also to see what makes Bosch admirable and attractive to those who do like him.
Bosch is a detective in the Hollywood branch of the Los Angeles Police Department.
He has a tendency to confront his superiors and disregard procedures, but it usually works out because his detective instincts are so good and his self-preservation instincts are just good enough.
And of course because his superiors, being insiders in the L.
A.
P.
D.
are so often corrupt.
The story opens with the discovery of a human bone, brought back by a dog to its owner while on a walk.
The resulting search leads to a child's body that had been buried for over 20 years.
Upon examination, they discover that the child had been brutally beaten for many years before finally being killed.
The story is primarily the story of Bosch's investigation of the murder and eventual location of the murderer.
"City of bones" is the description of the grid the archeologists in the story impose on an excavation as they methodically and painstakingly unearth and reconstruct the bones they have discovered.
Los Angeles, which is located near or over the La Brea Tar Pits, is also referred to as the City of Bones because the tar pits lured so many animals to their deaths only to disgorge their bones several thousand years later.
Scientists have also discovered the skeleton of an early human who appears to have been murdered and deposited into the tar pits as long as 9,000 years ago.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
What I love about Connolly's writing, other than his colorful language, superb ear for idiom, and sophisticated literary knowledge, is the tautness of the story line and his ability to weave in subplots without losing momentum or urgency.
When Bosch is on a case he works long hours late into the night, and I found it just as hard to put down the book.
In this case there are two stories which unfold during the investigation, the life and family story of the murdered boy, and a love story between Bosch and another police officer (Julia Brasher).
Both of these stories are profoundly disturbing in their own ways.
Discovering the life of the murdered boy is possibly more important to the tale as a whole, and certainly more disturbing, than discovering the cause of his death.
I did find the love story unsatisfying in the final analysis.
Brasher was too strong, and way too cool, to meet the end she apparently did.
What definitively happened is not clear in the final analysis, but if Bosch's take on it is correct (and let's face it, his conclusions are rarely wrong), Brasher was the victim of a sort of accidental suicide.
That is, she intentionally shot herself and inflicted the wound, but it killed her by a sort of fluke.
That sort of suicide would be an interesting counterpoint or comparison to the "changed-my-mind" suicide which is the opening scene of the novel, but I found the background psychology unconvincing.
I had not observed the development in her of the virulent "us-vs.
-them" mentality that Bosch said he saw, which would have been necessary to support her willingness to murder a suspect as she seemingly planned to do.
Again, she seemed far too cool, too sophisticated, and too emotionally flexible for such a rigid and heartless mentality to have developed in such a short time.
On the whole, Brasher's character left more questions than answers for me.
With the possible exception of the way Julia Brasher was handled, Michael Connolly's grasp of the psychology of all the characters in the story is deft.
Most of the characters are not deeply explored-they exist mostly only to play the roles they do in the story-and yet they are interesting and suggestive.
They are realistic enough to carry the plot, and that is enough.
Connolly is often compared to Raymond Chandler, and I believe the comparison is apt, but the characters are not quite as stark, and you do get to know them a little better than Chandler's characters.
Not many people like Bosch, and it's easy to see why, but Connolly lifts the curtain just enough for the reader also to see what makes Bosch admirable and attractive to those who do like him.
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