Over eighty million copies of Connelly’s books have sold worldwide and he has been translated into forty-five foreign languages. He has won the Edgar Award, Anthony Award, Macavity Award, Los Angeles Times Best Mystery/Thriller Award, Shamus Award, Dilys Award, Nero Award, Barry Award, Audie Award, Ridley Award, Maltese Falcon Award (Japan), .38 Caliber Award (France), Grand Prix Award (France), Premio Bancarella Award (Italy), and the Pepe Carvalho award (Spain) . hard-edged, smartly executed crime drama, pitting two of his most popular protagonists against each other. …cleverly conceived, superbly plotted and morally complex.” Chaste Hero: Bosch tells Kiz he's not interested in meeting someone new because he's leaving the door open for Divorce Is Temporary. Moot because the "someone new" in question is Jaye Winston, who's actually just investigating Bosch. As soon as he hears who it is, he puts two and two together.

One of the best in the series of 18 about LA Police Detective Harry Bosch. In this 7th installment from 2001, former FBI profiler Terry McCaleb, recovering from a heart transplant covered in Connelly's excellent "Blood Work", is brought in on a brutal ritualistic murder case. His work ends up making Bosch a suspect and threatens to undermine his ongoing efforts in a murder trial of a prominent Hollywood director in an apparent case of rough sex that got out of hand. Thus we get the interplay of a thrilling investigation and an exciting courtroom scenario. Excellent development of the main characters and their motivations and pathways to insight. In the process we get some nice elucidation of noir themes developed by Chandler (the source of the book title). A quote on the corruption process: "When you look into the abyss, the abyss looks into you. You don't go into the darkness without it going onto you and taking its piece. Bosch may have gone in too many times. He's lost his way." A quote on the power of Hollywood to illustrate the dialog of darkness and light: Winston tells him, "I've got a case here I was hoping you'd take a look at. In your spare time, I mean. I think it might be your sort of thing. I was hoping you'd give me a read, maybe point me someplace I haven't been yet." McCaleb uncovers how clearly, how uncannily, LAPD Detective Harry Bosch fits the killer's psychological profile. The similarities are indisputable. McCaleb has no choice but to tell sheriff's detective Jaye Winston. Yeah, it's too bad," Bosch said without a note of sympathy in his voice. "The kid had a bright future helping you kill people and getting people out of jail." The killer leaves a deliberate clue to his identity: he writes in Latin (no less) the phrase "Cave Cave Dus Videt" for the homicide detectives to find on the tape he used to bind his victim's mouth.A darkness more than night - BoschThis, friends, is not a profile. I'm no expert, but I've seen many seasons of Criminal Minds, and therefore I am an expert, and a profile should be formed around the traits that a killer may likely possess to have committed In a parallel and of course interconnected investigation, McCaleb is led to believe that Bosch may be guilty (again, no surprise that the MC tec is not really the culprit--as the main character culprit never is, yawn). As Terry’s investigation into Bosch builds into an elaborate situation using historical art and ritualistic murder, uncovered clues seem to mysteriously overlap in strange ways with Bosch’s own movie director court case. As another surprising revelation unfolds, the two cases begin to pull McCaleb and Bosch into each other’s crosshairs in a dangerous game of cat and mouse and life and death. There is no end of things in the heart. Somebody once told me that. She said it came from a poem she believed in. She understood it to mean that if you took something to heart, really brought it inside those red velvet folds, then it would always be there for you. No matter what happened, it would be there waiting. She said this could mean a person, a place, a dream. A mission. Anything sacred. She told me that it is all connected in those secret folds. Always. It is all part of the same and will always be there, carrying the same beat as your heart. I am fifty-two years old and I believe it.”

A highly interesting mix, where Bosch relinquishes the driver's seat in one of the novels co-attributed to his series. While he may not be front and centre, Bosch's person and history are certainly up for ananlysis and display. Winston's visit is the classic call to quest. She needs to catch a killer and has run out of leads to follow. She needs the hero's help. Time is of the essence, of course. Law enforcement agencies operate on a philosophy of triage. If the killer can't be caught soon, they must move on to other also-urgent cases. What Have I Done: Bosch gets a strong dose of this after McCaleb confronts him and leaves. He gets over it. Significant Name: Hieronymus Bosch was a Dutch painter who specialized in nightmarish hellscapes. The rather dark nature of the original Bosch's work, as well as elements of several Bosch paintings occurring in Gunn's murder scene, leads McCaleb to take even more interest in Detective Harry Bosch as a murder suspect. Beginning with the last 90's novel ( Angels Flight) in which we are introduced to Bosch's latest romantic interest, Eleanor Wish, with whom Bosch is to have a daughter this mellowing process takes root. Connelly is absolutely right to introduce this notable character shift in Bosch from this book forward because as I can attest to in my own personal life: when you see your child born, a fundamental shift takes place in a man. For me, I was reborn from a devilish bachelor into a man who now bore the responsibility of an innocent life. It completely turned around my life for the better. And so it is with Harry Bosch. It is the presence of his daughter that transforms him from Heironymous to Harry.Even the titles of the books used to be cleverer. Compare The Drop (a simple reference to Deferred Retirement Option Plan) to The Concrete Blonde (a reference to both lady justice statue on the courthouse and the body of a blonde entombed in concrete. [...] This 9th book in the 'Bosch Universe' pairs two popular Michael Connelly characters: Harry Bosch and Terry McCaleb. The book can be read as a standalone.