Sat 3 Feb 2024
An Archived Review by Barry Gardner: MICHAEL CONNELLY – Trunk Music.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[8] Comments
MICHAEL CONNELLY – Trunk Music. Harry Bosch #5, Little Brown, hardcover, 1996. St. Martin’s, paperback, 1998
Connelly is to me one of the strongest authors to emerge in this decade, and I am a bit surpassed that he hasn’t been nominated for more awards. The Black Echo did win a Best First Edgar, but what I thought was his best, The Concrete Blonde, went almost unnoticed.
Harry Bosch is back in homicide, after a disciplinary assignment away from trouble and the limelight His first case after he returns is a sleazy filmmaker’ s body in a trunk, one that has all the earmarks of a Mafia hit. The LA Organized Crime boys want no part of it, though, and this makes Harry a little suspicious. He gets even more so when the trail leads to Las Vegas and some mob figures. He follows it there, and finds a troublesome lady from his past, and more suspicions, and a lot more problems than he wanted, needed, or could comfortably deal with-but that’s par for Harry.
[A line I spotted:] “He smiled glibly.” I’ve always wanted to do that, but never knew how.
I think this is the first time I’ve given a Connelly book less than a [double star rating], but this was a very ordinary book for Connelly — which means it was above average, and better than most [authors] can write. One of the plot elements — his Achilles heel from the first book — wasn’t believable to me, and there wasn’t anything really exceptional about any part of the story.
It was nevertheless a good book, because Connelly is good enough to be readable even at half speed, On the whole, though, it was a little disappointing, if only because of the high standard he’s set.
February 3rd, 2024 at 10:36 pm
I confess it is me, and not Connelly or Bosch, and I wish I knew why I can’t get into this or the television series, unlike Child and Reacher I certainly can’t plead it is the writing or the character.
I can plea now there are just too many in the series to dive in, but I was resistant when the series started.
I can plea Connelly is just too prolific to keep up with.
The thing is I know I am missing out on something quite good (unlike Child) and just can’t articulate why.
February 3rd, 2024 at 10:49 pm
I’m kind of the same way. I’ve read two of the books and enjoyed both of them. I started a third and got, to coin a word, bored with it about a third of the way through, and I stopped. The usual good stuff was happening, but I just wasn’t interested. I also can’t say why.
I watched the first season of the TV show. Enjoyed it immensely. Haven’t watched the second one yet. Maybe too soon? No other reason comes to mind.
February 3rd, 2024 at 11:16 pm
Me … same as David and Steve. I read a couple of his books several years ago and wasn’t drawn to read anymore, and haven’t since.
February 4th, 2024 at 12:26 am
wow, am surprised at the first three responses. Connelly is my only author that when his new book comes out, have to read it asap. His characters are real, clues make sense, and the pace of the book just sucks you in. Whether Bosch, Haller or Ballard, always a first class read.
Connelly is prolific (39 books in 32 years), but as many as he has written, to me not a bad book.
February 4th, 2024 at 5:26 pm
I’ve been hoping for more comments than the four so far, but David P, I think you’re in the overwhelming majority. Connelly is one of the most well-known and popular mystery writers of the past 30 years, and still going strong.
February 4th, 2024 at 5:30 pm
That last statement I made has made me wonder. If the answer on JEOPARDY was “The author of the Harry Bosch books,” how many contestants would know that the question was “Who is Michael Connelly?”
February 4th, 2024 at 8:42 pm
Interesting to me that many authors when they reach bestselling status either write the same book to satisfy their readers or seem to coast and lose many of the readers that made them popular to begin with. Connelly has done neither, and always seems to tweak his stories either from a different viewpoint, new character or something in the headlines that keeps the story interesting.
Rarely does a bestselling author continue to win awards, but Connelly seems to be doing ok in that way.
From Wikipidia
Connelly has won nearly every major award given to mystery writers, including the Edgar Award,[18] Anthony Award,[19] Macavity Award,[20] Los Angeles Times Best Mystery/Thriller Award,[21] Shamus Award,[22] Dilys Award,[23] Nero Award,[24] Barry Award,[25] Audie Award,[26] Ridley Award, Maltese Falcon Award (Japan), .38 Caliber Award (France), the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière (France) and Premio Bancarella Award (Italy).[27] In 2012, The Black Box won the world’s most lucrative crime fiction award, the RBA Prize for Crime Writing worth €125,000.[28] He received the Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2018 from the Crime Writers’ Association.[29]
February 4th, 2024 at 9:58 pm
That’s quite a haul. Put all that hardware on one shelf and the shelf would collapse.
Some of his books have to be better than others, it goes without saying. I’m just going to tell myself the one I stopped reading was one of the others, and let it go at that.
Shouldn’t stop me from reading another. Maybe I just have to be in the right mood.