Review
A Review by Chris Bolton
Following on the heels of The Closers, Echo Park revisits similar thematic material as Los Angeles detective Harry Bosch is drawn back to another cold case, this one an unsolved murder and kidnapping from the '90s that has haunted him ever since. Bosch has even gotten into trouble for periodically "checking up" on his number-one suspect, the son of a millionaire who can afford to buy his way out of almost anything. Now, however, the District Attorney believes he has found the culprit: a sadistic serial killer named Raynard Waits who confessed to the crime as part of his plea bargain. Never having run across Waits in his investigation, Bosch is understandably skeptical... until evidence turns up that Bosch and his then-partner had the killer and unwittingly let him go.
With guilt and rage clouding his feelings, Bosch becomes part of a team that leads Waits into the woods to find the body. This section is the centerpiece of the novel, and it's a show-stopper. Its breathless unraveling draws much-deserved attention to Connelly's storytelling skill. I was reminded more than once of the climactic sequence in Seven, which this one rivals for nearly unbearable suspense.
Like all the best detective fiction, Echo Park dwells in regret, using the past as a dark backdrop to its present-day storyline. Already one of the more memorable modern series characters in crime fiction, Bosch's anguish over his past missteps fuels his determination to right his wrong -- and, most intriguingly (and humanly), blinds him to his present mistakes.
There is no finer writer of crime fiction working than Connelly. The proof is in the pages -- or, more precisely, how quickly they swim past. Echo Park is the sort of book you wait to read on a Friday, lest you wind up calling in sick to work to finish it.
From Publishers Weekly
Bestseller Connelly's compelling 12th Harry Bosch novel (after 2005's The Closers) offers some new wrinkles on a familiar theme—the aging detective haunted by the one who got away. In Bosch's case, the elusive quarry is the man who abducted a 22-year-old equestrian, Marie Gesto, in 1993. Having returned to active duty as a member of the LAPD Open-Unsolved Unit, Bosch repeatedly pulls the file to see if he can discover something new and give some small solace to the victim's parents. When a chance police stop of a suspicious vehicle nets serial killer Raynard Waits, who's carrying body parts in his van, Bosch assesses the murderer's claim that he was responsible for killing Gesto, too. The weary and cynical detective soon suspects that Waits is trying to barter information for a reduced sentence of life imprisonment. Political motivations connected with the upcoming DA election also cloud the investigation. Smooth prose and plausible characters—even the secondary figures—elevate this several notches above the standard cop vs. serial-killer thriller. Author tour. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Harry Bosch is still on the job, working out of LAPD's Open Unsolved Unit, and despite his best efforts at holding his antiestablishment impulses in check, he's in trouble again. This time the problem is an unsolved case that has haunted Harry since 1993. Now it appears that the killer has been caught, apprehended by chance and connected to a string of nine additional murders. As cops and prosecutors debate a plea bargain--the killer will confess to the murders if he can avoid the death penalty--it is revealed that Harry and his partner may have missed a crucial clue back in 1993 that could have solved the case then and prevented the later murders. But something doesn't feel right. As in The Closers (2005), Harry once again may be the victim of a politically inspired conspiracy, or "high jingo" in cop talk. Connelly remains a master at constructing plots that, like contrapuntal themes in music, echo one another. As we watch Harry confront the train wreck that could destroy his career, we also see him dealing with a potentially even more serious crisis being played out internally: Can he recover from the knowledge that his oversight may have resulted in nine murders? Is he a good cop with no tolerance for phonies, or is he, in fact, as his enemies have always argued, an uncontrollable rogue whose hubris costs lives? The answers to these questions are not as clear cut as one might assume, with Connelly forcing Harry's many fans to accept the harsh truth that the genre's most compelling hero may also be one of its most flawed. Superior crime fiction, as suspenseful as it is psychologically acute. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
