Echo Park by Michael Connelly and Len Cariou

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Echo Park
Available from Amazon
Price: $11.68
Updated on 11-9-2008.

Features

Audio CD

Publisher: Hachette Audio; Abridged edition (October 14, 2008)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1600245250

ISBN-13: 978-1600245251

Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches

Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces ()

From Publishers Weekly
Bestseller Connelly's compelling 12th Harry Bosch novel (after 2005's The Closers) offers some new wrinkles on a familiar theme—the aging detective haunted by the one who got away. In Bosch's case, the elusive quarry is the man who abducted a 22-year-old equestrian, Marie Gesto, in 1993. Having returned to active duty as a member of the LAPD Open-Unsolved Unit, Bosch repeatedly pulls the file to see if he can discover something new and give some small solace to the victim's parents. When a chance police stop of a suspicious vehicle nets serial killer Raynard Waits, who's carrying body parts in his van, Bosch assesses the murderer's claim that he was responsible for killing Gesto, too. The weary and cynical detective soon suspects that Waits is trying to barter information for a reduced sentence of life imprisonment. Political motivations connected with the upcoming DA election also cloud the investigation. Smooth prose and plausible characters—even the secondary figures—elevate this several notches above the standard cop vs. serial-killer thriller. Author tour. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From The Washington Post
In his 11 Harry Bosch novels, Michael Connelly has bucked two pervasive trends in modern crime fiction. Too many writers have fallen into the trap of writing quirky detectives who detour into cutesy or hard-boiled stories that devolve into violent, ironic self-parody. But Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch of the Los Angeles Police Department is serious and straightforward, and Connelly's latest, the knowing, taut and suspenseful Echo Park, proves that Harry's creator is as well. Since making his first appearance in 1992's The Black Echo as a 42-year-old, Bosch has aged in real time. Now, nearing 60, Bosch is back with the LAPD, working in the Open-Unsolved Unit, going over cold cases with his most recent partner, Kiz Rider. Most of the cops on the unit, including Rider, are from a different generation. Harry may have backup, but emotionally and mentally he's alone. A serendipitous traffic stop in L.A.'s Echo Park neighborhood nabs Reynard Waits, a man with body parts in his front seat. Soon Waits has confessed to a string of slayings involving prostitutes and runaways, as well as to two earlier murders: one of a pawnshop owner during the 1992 riots, the other of a young equestrian named Marie Gesto, whose car and clothing turned up in a garage but whose body was never found. Bosch had worked the Gesto case and had in years since reopened the files on occasion, but had come up empty. He had even pegged a likely culprit -- the son of a wealthy and powerful industrialist -- so Waits's confession and knowledge of the body's location throw him for a loop. But Bosch is shaken more deeply when the case files are reexamined and it seems that Waits had called the police shortly after the murder, pretending to be a tipster; he could have been implicated within a week of Gesto's disappearance. "Bosch considered himself a true detective, one who took it all inside and cared," writes Connelly. "Everybody counts or nobody counts. . . . It made him good at the job but it also made him vulnerable. The mistakes could get to him and this one was the worst of all mistakes." He could have prevented nine murders, and that knowledge leaves Bosch ready to crack. Connelly, a former crime reporter, knows both the squad-room and the newsroom, and once again he assembles a formidable group of adversaries for Bosch: the LAPD brass, the L.A. Times city desk and a powerful, well-connected lawyer who sees the Gesto case as the key to the district attorney's office. Connelly is still a master of the economical scene. His action never devolves into cheap suspense or sentimentality but moves along at an unforced clip. Several people from Bosch's past -- most notably his friend and former lover, FBI profiler Rachel Walling -- also make appearances in Echo Park, and their relationships with the aging detective are well sketched. What puts Connelly in the top rank of modern procedural writers -- and, perhaps, into the ranks of the better modern L.A. writers of any genre -- is his willingness to accept that there aren't always easy answers in Bosch's life, or sometimes any answers at all. (Indeed, the future of more than one major character in the series is left in question at Echo Park's end.) That sense of uncertainty and dread, combined with Bosch's going from middle age to the precipice of old age, informs every page of this novel. Connelly is one of the few crime writers who could conceivably kill off his hero and make it an organic, even inevitable, literary development. And like his namesake, the original Hieronymus Bosch, Det. Harry Bosch is groping his way through a violent and often surreal netherworld, with no guarantee that he'll be coming out the other side. Echo Park is simple, straightforward writing that plumbs beneath the deceptive surface of a deceptively surfacey city, and Connelly's chronicles of Bosch -- like the detective himself -- are aging like a fine Scotch.Reviewed by Kevin Allman
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: Echo Park (Harry Bosch) (Hardcover) Michael Connelly's latest Harry Bosch mystery, Echo Park, is just about as good as it gets. I am amazed at the consistent high quality of Connelly's writing. In 1993, Connelly was assigned the case of Marie Gesto, a young lady who disappeared on her way to a riding stable. Her body was never found, no suspect was ever identified, and the unsolved case continues to haunt Bosch (an LAPD detective now working in their Open-Unsolved Unit). In 2006, Raynard Waits is driving a van in Echo Park at 2:00 AM when he is stopped by the LAPD. Trash bags are discovered in his van that contain the body parts of two women. In an effort to avoid the death penalty, Waits wants to make a deal and confess to the murders of nine other individuals--including Marie Gesto. But Bosch isn't convinced that Waits murdered Gesto and things go terribly awry. Politics play a big role in Echo Park. Richard "Ricochet" O'Shea is a prosecutor running for district attorney. He's trying to use the Waits' case as a publicity stunt. When things go bad, he tries to blame the LAPD. The now retired assistant police commissioner and Bosch nemesis, Irvin Irving, is running for city council. He blames Bosch for his forced retirement and takes potshots at him in the press. Anytime politicians get involved, there seem to be bribes, cover-ups, blaming, and sacrifices that will benefit themselves. In Echo Park, FBI agent Rachel Walling (of The Poet and The Narrows) returns. Although not part of the official investigation, Walling still offers her expertise as a former psychological profiler. She also helps to keep Bosch on an even keel and provides a romantic twist. My only criticism of Echo Park is that the political angle plays such a prominent part in this book, but then fizzles at the end. We never learn if O'Shea and Irving are elected to higher office, or not. Otherwise, I would have given Echo Park five stars.

Echo Park
List Price: $14.98
Available from Amazon
Price: $11.68
Updated on 11-9-2008.