Echo Park: Harry Bosch, Book 12 (Unabridged) [Audio Download]

Another great Harry Bosch story. Michael Connelly is such a superb storyteller that you can read it a as stand alone novel or enjoy it as the next in the series.

Bosch is now in the Open-Unsolved Unit where he still keeps the file on the Marie Gesto case on his desk 13 years after her murder. It was never solved and is the one case Harry wants to crack above all others. Out of the blue he gets a call from the DA; a suspect has agreed to plead to the killing to avoid the death penalty on the new murder charge he now faces.

As he works the case he starts to realise the he and his partner may well have missed vital evidence which would have lead them to the murderer at the time and that the new suspect may in fact be innocent of this crime but guilty of many more he has not admitted to. Bosch starts to doubt the motives of the DA who is running for office and when the suspect escapes leaving two dead cops he is forced to contact an FBI profiler from the FBI to track him down and get to the bottom of what is really going on.

This is superbly crafted thriller; Connelly has woven five different and intriguing strands into this story - old murder, current murder, a serial killer, a dodgy DA, old relationships, new friends and lots of twist and turns along the way.

After a couple of merely good Bosch novels, Connolly returns to absolutely top form with Echo Park. Bosch has always been a satisfying blend of righteous intent, deep character flaws and a car crash personal life, but still you'll find some development.

The plot starts on familiar ground, (although new readers should ignore that comment as this can and does stand on its own as a novel) with a long ago unsolved case exercising Bosch and his partner Kiz Rider. Things soon escalate, as this case is part of a serial killer investigation, and before long Bosch is knee deep in political waters - never his favourite.

From there, the plot twists and turns, through 5 distinct parts of the story, but the odds are that you won't see them coming - Connolly really is the master of this genre. By the end little is as we first see it, and even Bosch hasn't emerged unscathed. As far as storyline goes this could just be the best of all the Bosch novels.

For new readers of Connolly - what are you waiting for, this is as good as Detective fiction gets - read any of his books and I defy you not to want to read them all. For established fans - you'll love it.

"Echo Park" is Michael Connelly's seventeenth novel, his twelfth to feature Harry Bosch and was first published in 2006. Orphaned at twelve when his mother was murdered, Bosch's teenage years were spent in and out of orphanages. He enlisted in the army and served in Viet-Nam, before returning home and joining the police force. Once a member of the LAPD's elite RHD (Robbery-Homicide Division), he was demoted to the Hollywood Division after an Internal Affairs investigation. After more than ten years in Hollywood, he was notified of a 'promotion' back to RHD - however, he chose to quit the force instead. Bosch had occasionally been seen by some as a maverick, but increasingly by others as a 'man with a mission'. He left the LAPD with an armful of Hollywood's open-unsolved cases, tool out a private investigator's licence and continued to 'speak for the dead'. However, a couple of persuasive phone calls from Kizmin Rider - a former partner from his Hollywood days - have seen his return to the LAPD. Harry and Kiz have teamed up again, though the pair are based at the Open Unsolved Unit, rather than at Hollywood.

One of the files Harry took with him when he quit the force related to the 1993 killing of Marie Gesto. Although her body was never recovered, there was never any real doubt she had been murdered. Bosch had never been able to solve it, though he'd always suspected Anthony Garland - the son of a well-known and very rich oilman. It's this case that starts moving in "Echo Park" - and not in a direction that Harry likes. As the book opens, Harry receives a request for the Gesto casebook from Freddy Olivas, a detective with the LAPD's Northeast Division. Olivas is the lead detective on a very high-profile case : Raynard Waits, the accused, was pulled over in Echo Park with the body parts of two women in garbage bags. In exchange for not seeking the death penalty, Waits has offered to plead guilty to a total of eleven murders - including Marie Gesto's. Bosch is certain that Waits' name never surfaced in the original investigation. Unfortunately, Olivas spots the name 'Robert Saxon' - one of Waits' known aliases - in the case file. This is a mistake that weighs heavily on Bosch's conscience. There is also a political dimension to the case that makes Bosch a little uncomfortable. The lead prosecutor is Rick O'Shea, who is running for the post of District Attorney : in his eyes, the ratings are all-important, more than the correct outcome.

Connelly is getting back to his very best with "Echo Park" - for me, there was a slight dip in form with "Lost Light" and "The Narrows". It would, however, be an advantage to have read some of the previous Bosch books. (Given that Rachel Walling makes a re-appearance, "The Narrows" may, ironically enough, be one of those that may be helpful). Irvin Irving, the LAPD's ex-Deputy Chief and Bosch's one-time arch-nemesis, is now unhappily retired. He is, however, running for City Council and is occasionally mentioned - in fact, he's happy to use Harry's bad luck in this case for his own ends. (In other words, he assures voters that he'll clean up the LAPD if elected - starting with officers like Harry himself). There are also a couple of phone calls between Bosch and another of his former colleagues at Hollywood, Jerry Edgar - I'm hoping he'll maybe get a bigger role in later books. The only thing about "Echo Park" that grated was the use of a name like "Rick O'Shea". I hope this doesn't pave the way for characters like "Dusty Rhodes" and "Sandy Beach" in later books...