The Black Echo (Harry Bosch, #1) (Windsor Selection S.)

by Michael Connelly

LAPD detective Harry Bosch is a loner and a nighthawk. One Sunday he gets a call out on his pager. A body has been found in a drainage tunnel off Mulholland Drive, Hollywood. At first sight, it looks like a routine drugs overdose case, but the one new puncture wound amid the scars of old tracks leaves Bosch unconvinced.

To make matters worse, Harry Bosch recognises the victim. Billy Meadows was a fellow 'tunnel rat' in Vietnam, running against the VC and the fear they all used to call the Black Echo. Bosch believes he let down Billy Meadows once before, so now he is determined to bring the killer to justice.

• ISBN10: 1409116859
• ISBN13: 9781409116851
• Publish Date: 11 June 2009 (first published 9 January 1992)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 12 November 2014
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Orion Publishing Co
• Imprint: Orion (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd )
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 496
• Language: English

Reviews

[zooloo1983]

I think the concrete blonde was one of the best books I have read in such a long time. it kept you guessing until the end and it was nice to revisit the past and how Bosch got to be in the Hollywood division as mentioned in the first two books! looking forward to reading the next one!!!

[tellemonstar]

I enjoyed the story line, but I felt like I was missing something the whole time because of all the vague hints about Harry's past and particularly about the Dollmaker case and such. It also seemed to suffer from what I call the 'fits and starts' - the story wuold travel along nicely then sort of peeter off a bit for a while then suddenly come back with guns blazing. I'll probably read the next one, but not quite yet.

[empressbrooke]

I always enjoy a solid detective caper, and Michael Connelly's first novel delivered, with a few downsides. My complaints mostly revolve around the dialogue - it's painfully unnatural. It's like he listened to his teachers who told him not to use contractions in formal writing and decided to apply that to his fiction. Everyone was also a little melodramatic and over-the-top - over and over again, I kept thinking, "Give me a break, people don't talk like that!"

Editing problems also detracted from the story - iced tea is referred to as "ice tea," Barney's Beanery is spelled "Barnie's" - given that the author seems to know Los Angeles, his misspelling of the popular bar is puzzling and someone should have caught that.

Finally, some of the bad guys seem to be bad for the sake of being bad. The deputy chief character is confusing. I won't go into details to avoid spoilers, but his final scene seems inconsistent with the rest of his story. The two IAD officers gunning for the main character also have murky motives - I don't think it was ever explained why they wanted to take him down so badly.

I always approach debut novels with a little more slack than I do later books, so I appreciate that Connelly spins a good mystery and an delivers an unforeseen twist at the very end. I'll read at least a couple more of his books (I have a 3-in-1 anthology from the library) and hope that his editors polished them up a little more.

[ibeforem]

This is the second book I’ve read in this series, and I like it. It’s an interesting first book for me, because there’s a lot that’s already happened to Bosch before this book even begins. I also find that these books start off rather slow, but once they gain momentum they keep you reading.

The mystery in this is interesting, and is about more than just a murder. I expect the animosity between Bosch and his higher ups will continue further into the series, and it adds another layer to everything.