Even a slim addition to the Harry Bosch series is a treat, and what “The Overlook” lacks in heft it more than makes up for in unexpected twists. The work first appeared as a serialization in the Sunday New York Times Magazine. Connelly has reworked the original and succeeds, again, at creating a first-rate crime novel – fast-paced and dizzying, and driven by Bosch’s unrelenting vision.
Bosch’s last case, in “Echo Park,” found him assigned to the Los Angeles Police Department’s Open-Unsolved Crime Unit. But “Echo Park” didn’t end well for Bosch. “The Overlook” finds him back on the current crime beat, in Parker Center’s Robbery/Homicide Special Division.
Bosch is home when the first call on his new job comes, at midnight. The Hollywood Division has asked for Homicide Special to take over a murder committed on the overlook above Mulholland Dam.
The crime scene has the look of an execution. The trunk of the victim’s Porsche is open, and whatever had been its contents – something quite heavy – has been removed. The victim had been made to kneel on the ground before being killed by shots to the back of his head. Identification on the body shows the victim’s name as Stanley Kent.
Bosch’s new partner, Ignacio (Iggy) Ferras hasn’t made it to the crime scene when the feds show up, in the person of FBI Agent
Rachel Walling of the Tactical Intelligence Unit. Rachel provokes discomfort on two levels. She and Bosch have a romantic history, and their last chapter didn’t end well. Also, the federal presence and its implied interference don’t sit well with Bosch.
The Tactical Intelligence Unit is focused on homeland security and terrorist activities. It is interested in Kent’s death because he is a medical physicist who had access to radioactive isotopes used for cancer treatment. Bosch and Rachel go to Kent’s home, where they find his wife bound and gagged. It looks as though Kent had been blackmailed into turning over a number of cesium sources to his attackers; the marks in the trunk of his car are easily attributed to the lead-shielded case holding the sources.
The ownership and location of the radioactive materials, the building block of dirty bombs, are of keen interest to the FBI. As they set off on a desperate race against time, intent on protecting L.A. from terrorist attack, Bosch and Rachel lose sight of solving Kent’s murder. The FBI’s assumption is that finding the terrorists behind the theft will certainly lead to the killer. Bosch isn’t so sure.
Those who read “The Overlook” as a serialization won’t find any changes to the basic story; the outcomes remain the same. But, as Connelly explains on his website (MichaelConnelly
.com), the work that originally appeared in The New York Times had to adhere to a strict format: 16 chapters with around 3,000 words each. Connelly said he is happier with the pacing of the rewrite, and that he enjoyed the opportunity to revisit and reflect upon changes to a story after it was supposedly finished.
It has been 15 years and 13 novels since Bosch appeared in “The Black Echo.” Connelly’s work is now the stuff of best sellers, and his recognition is well-deserved. Simplistically, he takes a lone wolf with a passion for justice, sets him against a fallible system and writes about their intersection with tight lyricism.
“The Overlook” is a fine addition to Connelly’s oeuvre, replete with all the elements his readers have come to expect: great velocity, imagery and unexpected twists.
But the novel’s most endearing quality, shared with its predecessors, is that Bosch and those characters in his orbit are unusually fully realized and fallible – in other words, human. Bosch’s sense of what is right and appropriate drives this tale and the ultimate outcomes are surprising, to say the least.
But what is perhaps most surprising is that Connelly, once again, has hit a home run. He does it quietly and without any pyrotechnics. He makes it look deceptively easy.
Robin Vidimos reviews books for The Denver Post and Buzz in the ‘Burbs.
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FICTION
The Overlook
Michael Connelly
$21.99
