In this crime novel, Connelly returns to his favorite protagonist, Harry Bosch, a charismatic cop who has been the kingpin of his most successful novels, at least to me. Harry, in this one, is still hanging on, trying to solve the murders no one else wants, in this case, one from twenty years ago in the Unsolved-Unit. In 1992, during the riots in the Watts section of LA, a Danish photo/journalist was found shot in the head in one of the neighborhoods that was at the center of the riots. National guard troops were there to keep order and they called in the cops, and Harry, where the body was discovered. The perpetrator was never found though the strangeness of the murder had bothered Harry for years. Thus, he begins his search twenty years later, still upset at the crime and, as usual, runs into the higher ups, who are afraid it will look politically racist, as the victim was a white foreigner...why not look for the perpetrators of the black victims. Harry, of course, goes against the instructions of his superior and pursues the leads, first to prison to talk with the young black youth who found the killer's gun, and he admitted to giving it to another gang member. Harry finds out who it is, now deceased, but goes to his house and persuades the wife to give him the gun. This enables Harry to find out who bought it...no one registered it, in fact, it's a Glock from Saddam's Iron Guard. This is the first hint that leads Harry away from the rioters to the National Guard. After many machinations and research on the Internet, he finds that the Danish Journalist was in the Middle East during Desert Storm, was on an R & R ship off the coast of Israel, a party ship for American troops. He discovers that during this R;& R, she was raped by four American troops. Thus, her coming to the States, her tracking down the perpetrators, who incidentally were in the National Guard, was her attempt at revenge, by either writing an expose or book. Somehow the guys find this out, lure her to the riot scene, and kill her. Bosch runs into a stone wall when he tries to persuade the higher ups of his story, so he takes a leave, goes in search of the National Guard veterans, finds they all live near each other in Modesto, one a wealthy landowner, another, the leader, the local Sheriff, and then a couple of hanger ons. Harry goes after the weak link, gets him to confess, but is then captured by the Sheriff, who has been suspicious of the 'new guy' in the neighborhood. Harry is tied up, ready to be executed, but is saved by an officer from Internal Affairs, who has been looking into his 'vacation.' A bit of a stretch, you might say. She saves the day; they go to get the Sheriff, who has executed the other three accomplishes, to keep them from talking, but Bosch gets him in the end, as he shoots down his helicopter, taking him in alive, to spend his life behind bars.
O, yea, Harry continues to have troubles with his daughter, who he loves but rarely understands and he has a new love interest, at least for this novel, Hannah Stone, a therapist who works with sexual offenders. Ironically, her son is in jail for rape, and he's the individual who sicks Internal Affairs on Harry. Early in the novel, Harry visits the boy, just be nice, and puts a hundred bucks in his account. As usual, Harry get never get a break. I am getting tired of these novels, however, either because they are too much the same or Connelly is losing his touch.
No comments:
Post a Comment