Once more into the waters (The Narrows - Michael Connelly)

Member Name: freediveheaven

Product:	The Narrows - Michael Connelly
Date:	23/10/05 (129 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great read

Disadvantages: Read the review.

I have long been a fan of the work of Michael Connelly as I particularly enjoy crime thrillers and Connelly is one of the best current day writers in this genre. Over the years Connelly has produced over 16 novels and his latest work The Lincoln Lawyer is due out in October of this year.

Background

Connelly produced his first novel in 1992 called The Black Echo and in it he introduced his main literary character Harry Bosch. The novel was an immediate success winning an Edgar Award for Best First Novel from the Crime Writers of America Association.

Connelly used his previous career as a crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times to provide the knowledge for his novels and he claims his inspiration to become a writer as coming from the work of Raymond Chandler. Indeed his first novel was based in part on a real life crime. Previous to moving to Los Angeles Connelly had been a reporter in Fort Lauderdale and also in conjunction with two other journalists had interviewed the survivors of a Florida plane crash for which they wrote a Pulitzer nominated magazine article. It was Connelly experience researching this novel which provided in part the foundation for one of his best books Blood Work which was published in 1998. In this book Connelly used the theme of “survivor’s guilt” following a heart transplant operation and drew on the experiences of a friend who had similar emotions to those experienced by the plane crash survivors. This was the first Connelly novel to be adapted for the big screen in 2002 and was directed and starred Clint Eastwood.

Connelly first four novels all featured Harry Bosch (The Black Ice, The Concrete Blond and the Last Coyote) before moving on to write in 1996 The Poet in which a newspaper reporter provided the main character. Other non Harry Bosch novels include Void Moon and Chasing the Dime as well as his latest book The Lincoln Lawyer. The remainders of his 16 novels have all featured Harry Bosch as the main character.

Connelly style of writing is to tell the story in the third person however in his work Lost Light featuring Bosch it was told in the first person from the viewpoint of Bosch and although it two was named as one of the best books for 2003 for me this style of writing did not work as well and perhaps the same can be said for Connelly as he has reverted to his normal third person style in subsequent novels.

Principle Character

Harry Bosch is the principle character in the majority of Connelly novels. The jazz loving Los Angeles detective is introduced in The Black Echo, the former star of the elite Robbery & Homicide Department he has been busted back to the Hollywood Homicide Department following a suspect shooting of a serial killer, the only thing that saved Bosch from the sack was his public popularity and fame following a film featuring his exploits.

Bosch is a loner having spent all of his life in institutions. Fostered as a child from his prostitute mother he spent much of his youth in a children’s home before serving in Vietnam and then moving into another institution the LAPD. Bosch problem is that while he is a brilliant detective with a great success rate his lack or respect for authority and the fact that he is not a team player in what his bosses view as the LAPD Family results in him spending as much time avoiding the attentions of the internal investigations department as he does solving crimes.

In the novel The Last Coyote the reader gets to learn a lot more about Bosch background as whilst again serving a suspension for striking his superior officer Bosch takes on the investigation of the murder of his prostitute mother seeking to lay to rest one of the motivations for him joining the police.

Why I’m a Fan

Well as I stated before I like crime thrillers and Connelly is consistently top of the class in the way he weaves to together his novel. He has a great talent for carrying the reader along in the investigation as Bosch unravels the evidence. It is hard to describe but often I feel as though I’m solving the case along with the main characters, sometimes I can predict where the storyline is going however often I’m only half right as Connelly cleverly introduces a twist that I have not seen coming.

His books do not rely on grotesque murders or violent scenes instead they use a steady increase in the tension levels to keep the reader turning the pages. One of the great things about Connelly is his consistency added to the fact that he has not yet resorted to the use of other writers to appear on his book covers unlike Patterson and Kellerman, often when this happens it is a sign that the ideas and inspiration are drying up however Connelly does not seem like he is heading in this direction.

If I had to recommend any of his work to a new reader then starting at the beginning with The Black Echo would make sense however for me his two best pieces of work are The Last Coyote and Angels Flight the latter I have already reviewed on Dooyoo however as yet there is not a category for The Last Coyote.

Thank you for reading my review and I hope you become a fan like me, check out Amazon in the new and used section for deals on his books and for more information on the author his official website is

http://www.michaelconnelly.com/index.html .

Summary: Harry Bosch Novel