Echo Park
"This has to be my favourite Michael Connelly book so far."
Synopsis:
In 1993 Marie Gesto disappeared after walking out of a supermarket in Hollywood. Fearing the worst, the case was elevated by LAPD commanders from the missing persons squad to the Homicide Division, where Harry Bosch was assigned the case. But the 22-year-old woman never turned up - dead or alive - and it was a case Bosch couldn't crack.
Thirteen years later Bosch is in the Open-Unsolved Unit when he gets a call from the DA's office. A man accused of two heinous killings is willing to come clean in regard to several other murders in a deal to avoid the death penalty. One of those murders, he says, is the killing of Marie Gesto. Bosch is now assigned to take Raynard Waits' confession and to make sure that the killer is not scamming authorities simply to avoid a date with death.
In confirming the confession Bosch must get close to the man he has sought for thirteen years. Bosch's whole being as a cop begins to crack when he comes to realise that he and his partner missed a vital clue back in 1993 that could have led them to Waits - and would have stopped the nine murders that followed the killing of Marie Gesto.
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Review:
Connelly returns with old favourite Harry Bosch who has been brought out of retirement to work on the Unsolved-Cold Unit. Bosch is a somewhat maverick character, and readers might see him as an American version of Billingham's Tom Thorne – complete with his slight disregard for authority to ensure a case gets solved, his hopelessness with romance and his seemingly unsociable persona. Connelly draws all the characters incredibly well, together with the story lines, giving enough information to the reader to think they know where the story is going whilst he manages to leave himself enough room at the end for a truly surprising twist. This has to be my favourite Connelly book so far. Although I have always enjoyed previous books, this book wasn't at the top of my long list of ones to read. How wrong I was… this is a crime novelist at the top of his game.