[.ca] City of Bones (ISBN 0316154059)

From Amazon.com:
Since his first appearance in 1992's Edgar-winning The Black Echo, Detective Hieronymous "Harry" Bosch has joined Dennis Lehane's Patrick and Angie, George Pelecanos's Derek Strange, and Greg Rucka's Atticus Kodiak in the pantheon of new-school hard-boiled detectives. Rather than giving Bosch a clever gimmick (like Jeffery Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme, who is a quadriplegic), Michael Connelly embraces the noir archetype: Bosch, an L.A. homicide detective, is a chain-smoking loner who refuses to play by his superiors' rules. Although he has quit smoking, Harry's still the same tightlipped outsider, taking each crime as a personal affront as he tries to cleanse his beloved city of the darkness he sees engulfing it. In City of Bones, Connelly's eighth Bosch title, Bosch and his well-dressed partner, Jerry Edgar, are working to identify a child's skeleton, buried for 20 years in the forest off Hollywood's Wonderland Drive, and to bring the killer to belated justice. For Bosch this is more than just another homicide, as the mystery child, beaten and abandoned, comes to represent much of what he sees as evil in his city. Add in a tragic love affair with a fellow cop, complications from overzealous media, and the growing feeling that he's fighting a losing battle about which no one cares, and the usually stoic Bosch is pushed to his limits. This isn't the strongest plot Connelly has concocted for Bosch, but it leads to an ending the whole series has been building toward. The conclusion may not shock longtime fans, but it will leave them wondering where the series will go from here. --Benjamin Reese

Where Next, Harry Bosch ?:
"City of Bones" is Michael Connelly's thirteenth book, his eighth to feature Harry Bosch and was first published in 2002. Orphaned at the age of twelve when his mother was murdered, Bosch spent his teenage years in and out of orphanages. He enlisted in the army and served in Viet-Nam, before returning home to Los Angeles and joining the police force. Once a member of the LAPD's elite RHD (Robbery-Homicide Division), he was demoted in the Hollywood Division following an Internal Affairs investigation. Bosch has occasionally been seen by some as a maverick, but increasingly by others as a 'man with a mission' and an excellent homicide investigator. Harry is one of the senior detectives at Hollywood's homicide table, and is Squad One's team leader. Although he continues to work with Jerry Edgar, the team's third member - Kiz Rider - has yet to be replaced following her promotion to RHD. "City of Bones" provides both a difficult case and a rough ride for Harry. A retired doctor makes a call to the department, saying that his dog had returned from a run in the Hollywood Hills carrying a human bone. A number of calls like this are made every year, which normally turn out to be bogus: however, this time, there is no mistake. Dr. Guyot, the caller, has correctly identified it as a child's humerus and has also identified a healed fracture on the bone. Using the dog to discover where the humerus had been buried, a subsequent, more detailed search recovers about sixty per-cent of the skeleton. This includes the skull, where the fatal blow was apparently struck. The remains are of a boy, possibly as young as ten, and show evidence of several years worth of chronic abuse. The best initial guess for the time of death, meanwhile, is between the mid-seventies and the mid-eighties - making the investigation a 'cold case', the hardest cases to close. The first step, obviously, is to identify the victim - a process that included looking at the list of missing persons who match the criteria for age and the time of disappearance. As harsh as it sounds, the injuries that made the boy's life so difficult may provide the key identifying him - and, possibly, the killer. When Bosch first arrives at Dr. Guyot's house, a couple of uniformed cops are already there. The junior partner, Julia Brasher, is a rookie (or 'boot') who Bosch is immediately attracted to. Given that Bosch is at supervisor level, it's against regulations to allow anything other than a professional relationship between the pair. However, given a pretty face, who also seems rather taken with him, and a chance to bend the rules, there's generally only one thing Harry Bosch is capable of doing...and when Bosch bends the rules, it generally means trouble. After "A Darkness More Than Night", when the action was divided between Harry and Terry McCaleb, this is a return to a 'straightforward' Bosch book - and is much better for having only one 'main' character. You won't feel too left out if you've never read any of the other Bosch books before. However, it's probably better if you've read at least a couple of them : there's a few passing references to some of the events of his previous adventures - the story behind his scar on his shoulder and his relationship with Teresa Corazon, for example. Recommended.

Terrific:
This being my first Michael Connelly novel I only knew him by reputation and didn't know what to expect of his writing. I bought it take on a short vacation and ended up reading the entire novel on the car ride en route. Needless to say, I was thoroughly enthralled by this book. Detective Harry Bosch's endeavor to solve a 20-year-old murder of a 12-year-old boy made for an interesting plot. But it was Connelly's ability to seamlessly move his characters in and out of a shifting storyline that kept the pages turning at a brisk pace. I found his writing to be very fluid and very readable. And I really didn't come across any dead spots in the book. I suppose that at some point the final outcome became predictable but, for me, that didn't dampen one iota my enjoyment of City of Bones. Other reviewers have stated that Connelly has done better in some of his other books in the Harry Bosch series. That being the case, I certainly will be reading many more of Connelly's works.

I Was Up All Night Reading This Book -I Wasn't Disappointed:
I picked up this book after reading an article about the author in the New York Times. I couldn't put the book down and finished it in two days. Unlike some authors who write about LA and put Downey next to LAX, Mr. Connelly's Southern California is accurate. The little bits of ambience he throws in ---Philippe's sandwiches, farmer's market donuts --are pleasant, but you don't have to be an Angeleno to enjoy his work. With the exception of the Julia Brasher character (I couldn't figure out what was going on there), I enjoyed each of the people I met in the book, from the stars to the bit-players. Little vignettes, like the auditioning LA police officers, the SID scientist who was an avid skateboarder, the anthropologist at the Page Museum who could read a person's history in their bones, the retired doctor, made the book come alive. I'm looking forward to reading more of this author's works. I also want to thank the people who write reviews. I read them in order to decide whether I will enjoy a book or not. I'm not a professional book person by any means, but by adding my voice, I hope that I can help someone decide whether this is a book for their tastes.

Harry Sees Monsters Everywhere:
The Harry Bosch series has a dual purpose: entertain us with crime and detection stories while portraying the depravity of our culture. In City of Bones, Michael Connelly expresses the kind of world-weary despair that causes many to lose faith in God . . . and humanity. As the story opens, it's the end of the year . . . a sad time for depressed people and two taxpayers take the quick way out. A call to Laurel Canyon reveals a bone that proves to be human, which also leads to a horrifying case of abuse. In searching for the rest of the skeleton, Harry is repulsed by the coroner's fixation on fame and glitter. He is refreshed to meet a mid-thirties rookie cop, Julia Brasher, who likes his style. The investigation is quickly compromised by someone wanting to curry favor with a television journalist, with dreadful consequences. Harry is, as usual, annoying the downtown people who care more about their image than justice. More mistakes occur, and more harm is done. Clearly, the lesson is that it's dangerous to turn the police loose on crime. If I could re-title the book, I would call it "People are never what they seem." You'll get more than your share of surprises in the book which is best appreciated as a deep character study. For those who like action, linear progress, and a taut plot, City of Bones will be frustrating: This book is more like the sort of "why do I bother?" soliloquy that most of us conduct in our heads from time to time. The investigating mistakes that Harry makes can be seen clearly if you read carefully: He's clearly not in a lucid state of mind. Exploring the sources and consequences of that displaced perception is the core of this novel. The noir parts of the story are well wrought. I especially liked the theme of peoples' bones being picked clean by the denizens of Hollywood. The reference to piranhas was quite effective.

Excellent, excellent:
If there is a better police procedural crime novel, I've missed it. I approached this book with some misgivings, having been disappointed by "Chasing the Dime." But Henry (Hieronymous--I liked that little touch) Bosch is a first-class, believable detective, all the way. He's jaded to some degree but tries to maintain some touch with the populace. The us-them relationship police have with the press and the "looky loos," as civilians are called, is there, certainly, but outwardly subdued. The plot feels right, enhanced by the fact that the writer didn't try to tie up all the loose ends, such as, the surprising matter of Julia Brasher and, not to give too much away, the fact that the killer is not at all a sure thing when we reach the final page. Not all killers confess into a tape recorder and psychoanalyze their own motives. Bosch makes mistakes. He goes down dead-end trails after false clues. He is imperfect. In short, he is realistic. So are the other characters, including his partner, the technicians, Bosch's superiors in the department, the suspects, the incidental personae--the entire cast. They don't always do what we expect, but people in real life don't either. Too many books have characters who appear to be "on rails." We know exactly where they are going and how the plot is going to follow them. I realize I haven't outlined the plot, but others have, and sometimes they give away too much. Suffice it to say that I'll read more of the Harry Bosch series and hope for books that are in this same class.