The Black Echo

Rating:
Summary: Great tale-spinner
Review: I read BLOOD WORK a few months ago and thought it was so enjoyable that I had to read Michael Connelly's other books. THE BLACK ECHO was his first and it was excellent.

Harry Bosch, an L.A.P.D. detective recently demoted from the more prestigious Robbery-Homicide Division to Hollywood homicide, gets a call on what looks like a run-of-the-mill heroin overdose. But Harry recognizes the victim - a fellow "tunnel rat" named Meadows from his Viet Nam days - and he spots evidence that leads him to believe that Meadows was murdered. Harry unearths a connection between Meadows and a huge bank robbery, and after initially being tossed off the case, Harry is teamed with a female FBI agent on the theory that the bank robbers are the ones who murdered Meadows.

Connelly did such a great job in weaving this plot that I just followed the twists and turns as they came, not anticipating the outcome. You will suspect everyone and still be surprised by the ending. What an entertaining novel.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Debut for a Great Character
Review: Michael Connelly won the "Edgar Award" for Best First Novel with "The Black Echo", which introduces us to LAPD Detective Hieronymous "Harry" Bosch. Bosch had formerly been a member of the LAPD's elite RHD (Robbery Homicide Division), but roughly a year before this book begins he killed a suspect in the 'Dollmaker Case'. As a result, Bosch was investigated by IAD (the Internal Affairs Department), suspended for a month and demoted to robbery-homicide team of the Hollywood Division. As it happens, IAD weren't entirely happy with this outcome, and are waiting for their chance to get Bosch out of the police force altogether. Malicious ? They make the 'real' villains look good.

Bosch proves to be an interesting character. With a reputation as being something of a loner, he's a jazz fan with a taste for coffee, beer and cigarettes. He served in Vietnam as a Tunnel Rat, before returning home and joining the Police Force.

It's Harry's time as a Tunnel Rat that comes back to haunt him in The Black Echo. The book begins with Harry being called out to Mulholland Dam, where a body's been found in drainage pipe. Dismissed by other officers at the scene as simply another drug user who'd accidentally overdosed - and therefore, not needing any further investigation - Bosch isn't quite so and decides to run with it. Things take a more personal twist when he recognises the corpse as a fellow Tunnel Rat, Billy Meadows. Things start looking more and more like Meadows was murdered - an autopsy seems to indicate he'd been tortured before he died, while a pawn ticket found in Meadows' apartment links him to a major bank heist carried out the previous year. This bank job is officially being investigated by the FBI and, as Bosch believes the men behind the bank job are also behind Meadows' death, he arranges a meeting with Special Agent Eleanor Wish. Harry's intention was to request a sharing of information but he doesn't exactly get what he wants out of the meeting - and things haven't finished going downhill for him.

Connolly's style of writing is excellent - a former Crime Reporter with the LA Times, I would assume there is a great deal of accuracy in his portrayal of a homicide investigation. He has created a very likeable character in Harry Bosch, while his descriptions of the city have left me feeling like I know LA. Definitely worth reading !

Rating:
Summary: A good first book, BUT...
Review: Connelly's prose is excellent, and I enjoyed reading a story set in the Los Angeles of my youth, but this story failed to engage me otherwise. The tone of the story is very grim, and I found myself constantly putting this book down and hoping it would end.

Despite Harry Bosch's intriguing name, at his core he seems to be a cookie-cutter hard-boiled detective. From the other reviews I have read, it is possible that he becomes more interesting in later novels, but I probably will not continue to read this series. Most of the characters in this novel were flat and uninteresting, with the exception of Sharkey, who was still a fairly unsympathetic character.

Although the mystery plot was intriguing, some of the sub-plots were not. These elements play out more as cliches than real sub-plots. Harry's bosses, and the Internal Affairs people seem to be unnecessarily antagonistic towards him and Harry develops an improbable romance with an FBI agent. These are merely cliches, and seem inexplicable within the novel's context.

While the investigation seems to make sense as you're reading, the denouement strains credibility when the author tries to tie up all of the loose ends with a contrived twist.

Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece
Review: Every now and then you read a book that announces the presence of an excellent new writer. These are great discoveries that are to be savoured: I get a shiver and my heart races with excitement each time it happens. The book cries out to be read slowly and enjoyed, but you just want to rip through it to see how it ends. Then you read the book again and again, just for the sheer enjoyment. "The Hunt for Red October" was one such book; "The Eye of the World" another. "The Black Echo" is a third. Michael Connelly's debut effort has to be one of the very best books I have ever read, and certainly one of the best detective fiction books out there.

Connelly has an excellent eye for describing real life: his scenes are gritty and intoxicatingly detailed and his ear for dialogue is superb. His characters are memorable; writing with the benefit of hindsight, the Harry Bosch series has proved to be a modern classic. The old adage is "write what you know about". Connelly knows crime (he was a newspaper crime reporter) and he knows LA; like the back of his hand. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good story. Stick through his next, "The Black Ice", which is very good but not as good as this, and then move into "Concrete Blonde" and "The Last Coyote", which are also superb.

Rating:
Summary: Connelly brings Harry Bosch to life...
Review: I am a new reader of author Michael Connelly. After several friends urged me to read "Blood Work", in which I enjoyed and recommend. Connelly's style instantly made me seek more of his work, "The Black Echo" is my second book of his. The plot was interesting, although I thought at times Connelly was prodding along, in which there was too much subject matter crammed into a "chapter", Connelly could have shortened the chapters, which would have made the novel flow better. The characters were excellent, Det. Harry Bosch reminded me of Lawrence Sanders'Timothy Cone character. All told, I look forward to "Black Ice" and will read all of Connelly's novels ASAP. Ed

Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put this one down
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. For the first book by Connelly, this was exceptional. Harry Bosche is a great character who loves what he does. It was fun to follow the inner workings of his cop mind. The only thing that kept me from giving this 5 stars was the ending. It was somewhat unbelievable. Nice twist though.

Rating:
Summary: Nice to meet you, Mr. Bosch
Review: I had previously read Connelly's "Blood work", and I was impressed by the author's simple yet thrilling plot and storyline, the complexity of the characters' lives, the seemingly unrelated facts that come together in unusual ways and the pace of the investigation, which starts slow, then picks momentum until you feel like you're in a race course.

"The black echo" was my second book by Michael Connelly. Thankfully, it has all the good elements I found in "Blood work". I enjoy reading police-investigation thrillers, and I like series that feature the same character, if the character is good. Harry Bosch is a good character in the sense that he is a bitter and somewhat unlucky man, which gives him a closeness to the reader; he's not a super-hero and he's certainly full of flaws, like everybody we know. But he's not the common anti-hero, because he's a terrific investigator, and respected as such.

In this first book in the Harry Bosch series, the LA detective comes along a body in a pipe by the Holywood reservoir. Overdose? Homicide? What Bosch knows for sure is the identity of the deceased man, who served with him as a "tunnel rat" in Vietnam, twenty years before. With the help of FBI agent Eleanor Wish, Bosch soon starts to discover that this "tunnel" is much deeper than he thinks.

Connelly won the Edgar Award for debut novel with "The black echo". His writing style is simple and confident, as a former journalist's should be. He doesn't waste the reader's time, everything that's in the pages has some significance, but his writing is not as tellegraphic as James Patterson's, for example. Connelly created a good character and provided him with very good plot, environment and psychology. It could hardly go wrong, and it didn't.

Bosch's books will now be a constant on my shelf.

Grade 8.8/10

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Debut for a Great Character
Review: Michael Connelly won the "Edgar Award" for Best First Novel with "The Black Echo", which introduces us to LAPD Detective Hieronymous "Harry" Bosch. Bosch had formerly been a member of the LAPD's elite RHD (Robbery Homicide Division), but roughly a year before this book begins he killed a suspect in the 'Dollmaker Case'. As a result, Bosch was investigated by IAD (the Internal Affairs Department), suspended for a month and demoted to robbery-homicide team of the Hollywood Division. As it happens, IAD weren't entirely happy with this outcome, and are waiting for their chance to get Bosch out of the police force altogether. Malicious ? They make the 'real' villains look good.

Bosch proves to be an interesting character. With a reputation as being something of a loner, he's a jazz fan with a taste for coffee, beer and cigarettes. He served in Vietnam as a Tunnel Rat, before returning home and joining the Police Force.

It's Harry's time as a Tunnel Rat that comes back to haunt him in The Black Echo. The book begins with Harry being called out to Mulholland Dam, where a body's been found in drainage pipe. Dismissed by other officers at the scene as simply another drug user who'd accidentally overdosed - and therefore, not needing any further investigation - Bosch isn't quite so and decides to run with it. Things take a more personal twist when he recognises the corpse as a fellow Tunnel Rat, Billy Meadows. Things start looking more and more like Meadows was murdered - an autopsy seems to indicate he'd been tortured before he died, while a pawn ticket found in Meadows' apartment links him to a major bank heist carried out the previous year. This bank job is officially being investigated by the FBI and, as Bosch believes the men behind the bank job are also behind Meadows' death, he arranges a meeting with Special Agent Eleanor Wish. Harry's intention was to request a sharing of information but he doesn't exactly get what he wants out of the meeting - and things haven't finished going downhill for him.

Connolly's style of writing is excellent - a former Crime Reporter with the LA Times, I would assume there is a great deal of accuracy in his portrayal of a homicide investigation. He has created a very likeable character in Harry Bosch, while his descriptions of the city have left me feeling like I know LA. Definitely worth reading !

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding!
Review: This is a terrific read that avoids the cutesy, smarmy vibe I get from many mystery efforts. Heironymous 'Harry' Bosch stars as an L.A.P.D. detective who's forced to battle his own department as much as the bad guys in order to get to the bottom of his case. Gritty realism abounds throughout the engaging story, giving the novel a hard edge that held my attention well. The secondary characters are well fleshed out, and Harry is superbly rendered as the flawed but sympathetic 'star' of the story. My only negative criticism is regarding the length of the novel, I think it could've been streamlined by 75 pages or so.

The Black Echo deserves the high praise it attained (including an Edgar Award)- definitely worth a read!

Rating:
Summary: Not bad for the first in the series
Review: I finally got around to reading this author! I was warned that the first books are finding their way a bit, but as they go on, they get better. I was quite impressed with this book and the character of Harry. Enjoyed it.

Only thing that hindering me from rating it a 5 was that Harry isn't a character that you immediately like. It takes a while. And the ending was a bit predictable. Either that or I'm a good sleuth.

I can't wait to read the following books in the series. I have an inkling they only get better.