Rage in the Page: bones to pick

Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Title: City of Bones
Author: Michael Connelly
Bookmark: a bookmark

Many years ago I read The Concrete Blonde (so long ago that it predated this blog), and was reminded of it recently when I saw someone reading it on a Kindle during a flight. I saw enough to recognize the story, but I had no memory of how it ended. Connelly's good like that. Even if a step or two in the investigation is predictable, there are enough weird turns to make the ending feel clever.

City of Bones opens with Connelly's usual hero Harry Bosch fielding calls on New Year's Day. After two suicides, he gets called into one of the canyons of LA where a doctor's dog has retrieved a bone from the woods, which the good doctor assures Harry is from a child.

As Harry and his partner Jerry Edgar investigate a case which hits home for both of them (Edgar has a son; Harry was a foster kid after his mom died), Harry gets close to the rookie beat cop who was on scene at the doctor's the first night, and the deputy chief takes every opportunity to try to force Harry out of his department.

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS
I just wish there were more depth in the death of one of the main characters. When it happens, it seems abrupt and perfunctory, and we never get a clear explanation of what happened. Character traits explained by Bosch to the department shrink at the funeral feel like they were introduced at that very moment; there really isn't much sign of any of it before he mentions them. It feels like Connelly ran out of ideas for her and killed her off so she wouldn't be his problem anymore, which is unfortunate for other characters and the reader.

Labels: murder, mystery/detective