The Narrows [Paperback]

The Poet is active again. The brilliant but deranged serial killer who somehow escaped in Michael Connelly's award-winning book THE POET has left the FBI the location of his killing field. He also leaves a note inviting Rachel Walling, his FBI combatant in the earlier book, to come and catch him. Since The Poet disappeared Rachel has been posted to the Dakotas as a form of FBI punishment for her failures, but she answers the call and heads straight for the Nevada desert where ten bodies are being exhumed. Joining her, in a round about sort of way is Harry Bosch, who happens to stumble into the investigation, but naturally, runs rings around the FBI.

Their partnership is an uneasy one. Bosch suspects that Rachel has been ordered by her superior to keep an eye on him and this is how she has decided to do it, Rachel knows that Bosch isn't telling her everything he knows about the case. And they're both pretty certain that The Poet is luring them into a trap that he will spring at a time of his choosing. It's a chase that will take them from Las Vegas all the way back to Harry's home turf in Los Angeles.

Michael Connelly has written a celebration of past books by joining together characters from his different series and stand-alones. This isn't the first time he has done this, having already brought together Harry Bosch and Terry McCaleb in A DARKNESS MORE THAN NIGHT.

This is certainly not the most compelling book in the Harry Bosch series, but to give it its dues, the detective work was clever and insightful. Where it fell down for me was in the pacing. It drifts along for an inordinate length of time before there was any real interaction between the killer and the protagonists. In place of the head-to-head confrontations between Harry Bosch and The Poet, the story was taken up with Bosch butting heads with the FBI. While this was entertaining to begin with, its continuation became irritating because it impeded the flow of the story.

THE NARROWS never really delivers on the promises it makes through the knowledge that a heartless killer is out there possibly hunting the hunters. Comparing it to a couple of the books from which the characters were taken, I thought THE POET was a more face-paced thriller that contained much edgier drama, while the previous Harry Bosch book LOST LIGHT gave us a more introspective analysis of the Bosch persona, which epitomises the Harry Bosch series, while also providing a heart-pounding thriller.

An unusual but effective feature employed by Connelly was to shift from a first person narrative to a third person description from chapter to chapter. Whenever Bosch too the scene, it was told from his perspective, but Connelly gave himself the freedom to describe events outside of Bosch's realm too.

It's a good thing I'm just wild about Harry or I'd be wondering what all the fuss was about. Although it was a treat to have the interwoven characters and past storylines joined, I felt the story fell a little flat.

There are a few interesting technical touches. Authors usually write in either the first person or the third person throughout. Here, Connelly makes Bosch the narrator, but cuts in and out with third-person views on the rest of the cast. To my surprise, he succeeds in making it work pretty well. He also gets away with mentioning the film of "Blood Work", and having a character read "The Poet". At one stage, Harry even feels "the wire in the blood".

I think Connelly is more interested in, and perhaps better informed about, police work than the psychology of serial killers. The Poet is scary, yes: but in a matter-of-fact way, whereas some of Thomas Harris', Mo Hayder's or Val McDermid's murderers inspire feelings of genuine terror.

Bottom line: I, too, got this book as a Father's Day gift, but if I hadn't I would have been happy to buy it in hardback. That's not something I could say of many authors.