2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Policing Cold Cases without a Badge, Jun 30 2008
You can quit the force, but can you get it out of your blood? Clearly not based on this excellent novel about a retired Harry Bosch seeking justice for a murdered woman. But can you at least get away from the police politics? Maybe so. Maybe not.
Why can't Harry leave a cold case alone? The dead woman's hands were "directed upward from her head, as if she were reaching out to someone, almost beseechingly, begging for something. They looked like the hands from a Renaissance painting, like the hands of the damned reaching heavenward for forgiveness. In my life I have worked almost a thousand homicides and no positioning of a fallen body ever gave me such pause."
The advantage of being retired is that you have plenty of time to work on one cold case. The disadvantage is that no one has to help you. Harry Bosch always finds a way, driven by the cruel memory of the dead Angella Benton.
One thing connects to another, and soon Harry is seeing that appearances may be deceiving . . . and intended to fool the casual observer. Then Harry steps his foot into something very delicate, the heavy feet come down on him. Harry doesn't like it, and he's more determined than ever to get to the bottom of the murder.
Opportunity, motive, and alibi all turn out to be important to solving the crime.
But Harry also notices some things that don't add up . . . but doesn't draw the right conclusions until the end of the book where you and he are in for a big surprise.
This is one of the better Harry Bosch stories, and it marks new ground for the series.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Retiring with grace, July 7 2004
This book is told entirely in the first person, through Harry's eyes and mouth. For that reason, it takes on a very personal aspect that some of the other Bosch books don't have. Harry's personal foibles, his mistakes and his lost love make him a bit easier to relate to. He's fallible, but he doesn't fail. He's outside the loop now, but he still solves the mystery. Moreso than usual, Connelly grabs you by the collar and won't let you go until the end. This is the kind of book you want while you're waiting to serve jury duty or get on a delayed airplane flight. Diximus.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
3 1/2 Stars -- Worth Reading But Not Connelly's Best!, April 28 2004
This review is from: Lost Light (Hardcover)
Let's start with the obvious to anyone who's read a book in the Harry Bosch series. Lost Light is a very well written mystery, the main character is one of the best developed and multi-dimensional to be featured in a mystery series, and the plot is complex and keeps you guessing. However, on a comparative basis, Lost Light is more slow paced and less action-packed and suspenseful. Perhaps Bosch's now being a private eye versus a cop has made it seem to me that he doesn't have the same toughness and "edge" that made him such a memorable character in earlier books in the series. It will be interesting to see what direction Connelly takes Bosch in upcoming books. If you read this book you'll see that Connelly has created several options for Bosch. I'll be anxious to travel along with Bosch (and some other characters Connelly has featured in other books) in his next adventure, The Narrows, which will be released soon.
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