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I certainly wouldn't describe myself as a devotee of Connelly's Harry Bosch series, but my previous encounters with the character were enough to draw me towards this one, and the book didn't entirely disappoint. LAPD Detective Harry Bosch, currently saddled with a street-shy partner who is far happier behind a desk following his return to active duty from a gun-shot wound, investigates the death of an elderly liquor-store owner. Mr Li had previously played a small but significant part in Harry's life many years before, and the detective is determined to bring his killer to justice, even if it means tangling with the Triads to do it. It quickly becomes clear that Li was the victim of a protection racket, but Harry is certain that there was more to his death than that, after all, why kill the goose that lays the golden egg? With Harry's own partner, Ignacio Ferras, determined to stay of the front line at all costs, the detective finds himself forced into a closer working relationship with David Chu, from the Asian Gang Unit. As past of this association, Harry is forced to confront the reality of his own war-driven prejudices as he's sucked further into a culture that he clearly struggles to understand. Unsure whether he can trust Chu, matters are made worse when Harry's own daughter, living in Hong Kong with her mother, is kidnapped. He catches the next flight over there and teams up with his ex-wife, Eleanor Wish, and her new boyfriend, Sun Yee, Eleanor's minder from the casino where she works as a professional card-player. As the focus of the action switches to Hong Kong and the search for Harry's daughter, the detective seems off-balance and makes a simple, wholly avoidable mistake, with devastating consequences. I didn't find the book's protagonist quite so assured out of his normal stamping-grounds, and there were aspects of this section of the book and its aftermath that I found rather unconvincing, not least of which was the routing, by Harry's lawyer, of the Hong Kong police who travel to Los Angeles in an attempt to make him answerable for his actions whilst careering like a loose canon around their territory. The scene was just too glibly accomplished and both Hong Kong cops deserved a kick up the backside for caving in so easily. Or alternatively Connolly deserves the same kick for sloppy writing. I don't know the series well enough to judge how well it stands up to comparison with others, but read as a standalone crime novel it was good enough to keep me reading, and it did pack in a few unexpected twists and turns along the way. § Linda Wilson is a writer, and retired solicitor, with an interest in archaeology and cave art, who now divides her time between England and France.
Reviewed by Linda Wilson, August 2010
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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