Sunday, September 21, 2008

Lost Light - Michael Connelly

You have to give Michael Connelly credit for not writing the same book over and over again. After establishing his Harry Bosch series, he’s made a habit of alternating Bosch novels with stand-alones (although all the stand-alones eventually tie in to some extent with the Bosch novels). Nor is he averse to trying something different within his most successful series. In LOST LIGHT, the ninth Harry Bosch novel, the narration switches from third person to first person, and Bosch is no longer a cop but rather a private detective, having retired from the LAPD. He doesn’t really have a client in this novel. Instead he’s working for himself, trying to solve a case in which he was involved four years earlier, the murder of a young woman that eventually tied in with a daring armed robbery that netted two million dollars being used in the making of a movie.

Of course, if you’ve read Connelly’s work before, you know things are going to get even more complicated than that before Bosch untangles everything. The FBI gets involved. There’s a terrorism angle. Bosch wrestles with some personal dilemmas. While all this is going on, Connelly gradually peels back the numerous layers of plot, throwing in some particularly ingenious twists, until he comes to a satisfying conclusion.

I think I like third person cop Bosch a little better than first person PI Bosch, but either way the books are top-notch, and LOST LIGHT is no exception. It ends in such a way that I want to read the next book in the series right away, but I’m probably going to hold off for a while so that I won’t get burned out on the series like I did a couple of years ago.

4 comments:

Randy Johnson said...

Good book.
Were you aware that Elvis Cole appeared in this novel, unnamed of course? Just as Harry Bosch was in The Last Detective.

James Reasoner said...

Yeah, I figured that unnamed private eye had to be somebody, and Elvis Cole was my chief suspect. Thought I remembered reading something about that little crossover. I haven't read any of the Elvis Cole books, but I've read Crais's stand-alones and liked them. I plan to get to the Cole books soon.

Gary Dobbs/Jack Martin said...

The first person suits the PI story better and of course its in the tradition OF Chandler. Are there any well know PI series. With the exclusion of the maltese falcon are there any well know PI series in the third person?

James Reasoner said...

Probably the most prominent PI series told in third person is the Mike Shayne series. I'm sure there were others, but none that ran so long or so successfully.