Sat 18 Mar 2017
MICHAEL CONNELLY – The Black Echo. Harry Bosch #1. Little Brown, hardcover, 1992. St. Martin’s, paperback, 1993. Reprinted many times since.
The Black Echo won that year’s Edgar for Best First Novel, and it’s no wonder. It’s a great book, one that will suck you right in, starting with Chapter One, and keep you reading until it’s over. Not that you’re likely to read it in one sitting. It’s over 500 oversized pages of small print in the current premium paperback edition, and it took me almost a week of grabbing it up at bedtime and reading as long as I could keep my eyes open.
It starts out with Bosch, now working for the Hollywood Station of the LAPD, being called in to check out a dead body found in a concrete pipe near Mulholland Dam, and it doesn’t quit until he’s closed a case involving an attempted break into a security vault in Beverly Hills.
The connection? Tunnels. Bosch knew the dead man back in Viet Nam, where they were tunnels rats together, days that haunt him memories still. Working with him on the case for most of the book is a comely FBI agent named Eleanor, whose brother never returned from Nam and with whom he finds a certain, shall we say, extracurricular rapport. On his trail and tracking every move he makes are two cops from Internal Affairs named Lewis and Clarke; Bosch is the kind of guy who goes his own way, and his previous big case caused him a lot of problems, including both a suspension and a transfer.
As I say, this is long book and the story is very involved, and this brief summary doesn’t do it the justice it deserves. There is one long conversation that one villain has with Bosch when the former thinks he has the situation well under control, but doesn’t. Otherwise, for a first time writer, Connelly had very sure hands at the typewriter when he wrote this one. I don’t think there’s anything in it that’s trail breaking, but both the author and the character caught a lot of people’s fancy at the time, and they still do today. You can put my name on the list.
March 18th, 2017 at 4:28 pm
Hands down, my favorite writer and I feel the best in the business writing now. Very consistent, good plots that solving doesn’t depend on coincidence, and great characters. His stories also have a breakneck pace to them that you just don’t want to stop reading. I’ve read that sometimes he writes the same way, and doesn’t understand people that are critical of writers that write quickly. He feels if you are in the flow of a great story, the author also can feel the book’s energy.
One of the very few authors that I read his work as soon as it comes out, and have also read every one of his titles.
March 18th, 2017 at 5:27 pm
I personally rank both Deon Meyer and Jo Nesbo higher.
March 18th, 2017 at 5:49 pm
Two authors I haven’t read, but I’d have to say the same thing about almost every other author writing today, unless they’ve been around a while — and by a while, I mean 20 years or more. I fell behind sometime in the 90s and I’ve just never caught up.
March 18th, 2017 at 8:20 pm
Like you I’ve never caught up. I’ve read a bit of Connelly, but like the non series better.
March 18th, 2017 at 8:25 pm
Deon Meyer to me writes a very similar book to Connelly, only in a South African setting. The two authors even look a bit alike. Meyer switches his main character around every couple of books, which is interesting. He is also on the short list of to be read right away authors. I have only read one Nesbo book, so don’t have much of an opinion on his work.
March 18th, 2017 at 9:02 pm
If either or both write as effectively as Connelly, I’ll check them out next time I’m in Barnes & Noble.
March 19th, 2017 at 5:50 am
So far I’ve only read the first two Nesbo books (the ones set outside of Norway), and liked them both. Same goes for the one Meyer I’ve read.
Connelly is right up there with my favorites and I do read each new book as it comes out, He’s made mistakes (as far as I’m concerned) a couple of times, but his average is very high.