The Black Box by Michael Connelly

 The Black Box in the title refers to an item that, like the black box in an airplane, has the right information for a detective to understand exactly why or how a murder happened. In Harry Bosch's current case, retrieving the black box has taken more than twenty years. He's investigating a cold case that began during the L.A. Riots, when there were far too many bodies turning up to give each of them a proper investigation.

A Danish reporter was murdered in an alley, execution style, her body left slumped near a chain link fence. Everyone has always assumed that it was one of the local gangs who killed her, and Harry starts down that road to begin with. The trail does lead, somewhat circuitously, to an item very similar to a black box - a black pistol. Tracing the provenance of the pistol gets a little twisty (though Connelly always finds a way for Harry to get what he needs more quickly than the normal bureaucratic grist must grind, so the story doesn't drag out for months), but eventually it leads Harry to ask the right questions.

It's almost a required plot element for Harry Bosch books that he have some sort of conflict with his boss, and even get dragged in front of Internal Affairs at some point, and the book also delivers on that score. Not a bad installment in the series, but it really brings nothing new and exciting to the table.

The Drop by Michael Connelly

Harry Bosch is back, busily raising his daughter by himself, while working in the Unsolved crimes division of LAPD. The unit routinely subjects old evidence to new technology and techniques, like DNA testing, and when a match appears on a blood sample from a thirty year old case, he and his partner, David Chu, get assigned to investigate. The odd thing is that the sex offender whose blood matches would be perfect for the crime, except for the fact that he was only eight years old when it occurred.

Just as they are diggin into the case, Harry gets pulled away to investigate the apparent suicide of George Irving, son of city councilman Irvin Irving, with whom Harry has a history of conflict. It seems that Irving believes he can trust Harry to follow the investigation wherever it might lead, as he has always done in the past, without regard for the consequences.

Though the intitial investigation team has ruled it a suicide, Harry and Chu discover some evidence of a struggle in the hotel room from which George jumped to his death, and begin to pursue the thread of a murder investigation. Young George was a political influence peddler, who traded on his dad's position with the city, charging people a fee to get city contracts approved, zoning requirements waved, etc. Along the way, he has made some enemies, and it seems at first that one of them helped him out the window to the pavement.

In the lulls between events in that investigation, Harry and Chu continue to work on the cold case, which leads them to track down a serial rapist and killer. Harry gets romantically involved with a psychiatrist working with sex offenders, Hannah Stone, along the way, which leavens the professional plot with a bit of the personal, as does his relationship with Maddie, the daughter he is raising after the death of his ex.

The twists and turns of the highly political murder/suicide investigation are pretty good, Harry is his usual stubborn self, and we hope he doesn't retire too soon.

The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly

Lawyer Mickey Haller has fallen on slightly hard times, as criminal defense cases have all but dried up due to the long U.S. recession. Ever adaptable, he has begun taking the cases of people who have had their homes foreclosed on, and it's turned out to be just what the banker ordered. When one of his clients, Lisa Trammel, is accused of murdering the bank vice president who is trying to take her home away, he's back in the saddle again, taking the reins of what may turn out to be a high-profile criminal case.

Lisa has had some hard times too, being abandoned by her husband after he lost his job and the house payments got too far behind, then fighting a losing battle against the foreclosure mill that handled the paperwork (which may be a Mafia front). In the course of her fight, she started an organization, FLAG, that organizes protests against foreclosures, and has gained some national recognition (which didn't do a thing for her finances, evidently). The mortgage company that turned her over for foreclosure has taken out a restraining order against her, and she's no longer allowed to be within 100 yards of the bank.

Mickey has, since we last saw him, taken on an associate, fresh out of law school, the possibly lovely and talented Jennifer Aronson. Connelly does mention that Aronson is talented at legal shenanigans, but it's uncertain whether she's lovely or not, as she never really becomes a fully-fleshed character, serving merely as a foil for Mickey and someone with whom he is able to conduct a dialog that explores the ethical and personal ramifications of, as a criminal lawyer (is that redundant?), defending those whom one suspects or believes may be guilty.
That is really the theme of this story, and Haller, jaded veteran, mostly tries not to think about it too much, though we are evidently expected to, as it is discussed repeatedly throughout the story, and the ending itself reflects Mickey's nascent feelings on the matter.
The whodunnit part of the story is quite good - Haller puts on a Johnny Cochrane OJ defense, arguing that his client was not guilty, and could not have committed the crime, given the physical evidence. There are two clues mentioned very early that turn out to be the crucial bits of information that reveal the true guilty party. I have to admit I missed them at first, and only at the big reveal did I have my "Aha!" moment.

Connelly is always good at weaving a strong story, but is, at least in this case, a bit weak on making his bit players more real.

The Scarecrow, by Michael Connelly

Jack McEvoy is a journalist, on his last legs at the L.A. Times, who has just written a brief article about the arrest of a gangbanger, Alonzo Winslow, for torturing and murdering a  young woman and stuffing her body in the trunk of her car. Alonzo's grandmother calls McEvoy to protest her boy's innocence, and he decides to look into the case a little deeper, thinking that perhaps he can write a gripping story about how a young person reaches the point where they can commit such a horrible crime, his last big hurrah before he leaves the paper in two weeks.
As he digs deeper, however, he discovers that there has been another murder, commited in Las Vegas, and that the method of disposing of the body bears eerie similarities to the Winslow case. Could the boy, in fact, be innocent, framed for the murder by a cold and calculating serial killer?
McEvoy flies to Las Vegas to talk with the lawyer for the man who has been convicted and put in prison for this other murder, and things start to get hairy. He calls in Rachel Walling, an FBI agent whom he has worked with on a previous case (also a previous Connelly novel, The Poet), and together the two begin to chase down the killer, even as the killer begins to chase them.
Connelly does a nice job in this book of creating suspense, and though we know all along, from vignettes from the killer's point of view, who dunnit, there's still a few surprises in store.

9 Dragons, by Michael Connelly

It's always a pleasure to meet up again with Harry Bosch. It seems like it's been a while since Connelly wrote about his most well-known detective.


Bosch's latest case starts with the murder of the owner of a grocery store. He's a Chinese immigrant, and evidence quickly points to the triads, Chinese secret societies along the lines of the Mafia or Yakuza. Bosch and his partner are quickly led to the local collector of protection money, and arrest him as he is trying to flee the country. At this point, things get a little twisty.

I actually identified who the bad guy was early in the book, and immediately thought, when Harry gets a threatening phone call from an oriental-sounding person, that the crooks were going to do something to Harry's teenage daughter, Maddie, who is living in Hong Kong with his estranged ex-wife, Eleanor. So, things proceed pretty much according to my expectations for quite a while.

It's an old adage that reading science fiction requires the willing suspension of disbelief, but I found myself in the same situation at about the midpoint of the novel. Harry heads for Hong Kong to rescue his kidnapped daughter. He leaves on Friday afternoon, and has to have her back by Monday morning, when they'll have to release the suspect in the murder case, if they don't have more evidence to hold him. So, at this point, I'm supposed to believe that Harry can fly to Hong Kong, successfully investigate his daughter's disapppearance, find the kidnappers, bring them to justice, in a city he's only visited a couple times a year, when he doesn't speak a word of Chinese? Yeah, right.

Regardless of my lack of faith, Harry manages all these things, and rescues the daughter (not much of a spoiler, it has to happen, right?), then returns to L.A. At this point, some little details start to click in Harry's brain, and the resolution of the tale gets a little twisty. Suffice it to say that I didn't have everything figured out, as I'd assumed, and the ending was worth the price of admission.