A Darkness More Than Night (Harry Bosch)

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Connelly reminds us, "Words from a killer were always significant and put a case on a higher plane. It most often meant that the killing was a statement, a message transmitted from killer to victim and then from the investigators to the world as well." A Darkness More Than Light: Lead investigator on a murder case that saw the arrest of the son of a wealthy and powerful man, Harry Bosch now finds himself in the midst of a high stakes trial where his every method is questioned. Meanwhile, criminal profiler Terry McCaleb is called to a murder scene where the killer has left a message that seems to implicate Bosch. The pair, first at odds, must now work together to clear Harry's name... A Darkness More Than Night is the seventh installment in the series, but it's really more of a Terry McCaleb novel than a Harry Bosch one. In a sense this book has 2 storylines both are about Harry Bosch, and you get to know more about him, his history as quite a few books together. And Harry remains a fascinating character. Orgy of Evidence: McCaleb initially thinks it's a sign of a frame, but his profiler's instincts take over and he comes to think Bosch has all the markings of a Killer Cop. It's a frame.

As the case unfolds in court, L. A. County Sheriff's detective Jaye Winston seeks out Terry McCaleb, looking for help on a case that has dead-ended. McCaleb, who was forced to retire after having a heart transplant, is now living quietly, running a charter fishing boat, and carving out a life with his new wife, their daughter, and his adopted son. But he hasn't lost the drive and the curiosity that once made him a leading FBI profiler. Beginning with the last 90's novel ( Angels Flight) in which we are introduced to Bosch's latest romantic interest, Eleanor Wish, with whom Bosch is to have a daughter this mellowing process takes root. Connelly is absolutely right to introduce this notable character shift in Bosch from this book forward because as I can attest to in my own personal life: when you see your child born, a fundamental shift takes place in a man. For me, I was reborn from a devilish bachelor into a man who now bore the responsibility of an innocent life. It completely turned around my life for the better. And so it is with Harry Bosch. It is the presence of his daughter that transforms him from Heironymous to Harry. Harry Bosch is a detective in the Los Angeles Police Department who almost always closes his cases, but is usually on the wrong side of his superiors.Obviously Bosch is a flawed and imperfect man, and that is why he is compelling and interesting and his series didn't stop at a duology, Twobook McWho. But a sadistic killer he is not. There's never a single doubt in my mind on this point, no matter how hard TERRENCE tried to force it all to fit. And it was so frustrating that he tried so hard to make it fit. Being forced to watch him "work" this case was exhausting to my eyes because they kept trying to roll out of my skull every 2 minutes or so as the logical leaps and fallacies abounded. As the noose tightens around Bosch, the ex-profiler finds Harry Bosch on board his sailboat in Catalina. Bosch has broken in and has gone through all of McCaleb's papers. He knows all that McCaleb knows. Bosch is now a desperate man. Still, McCaleb is astonished when Bosch tells him, "You missed something." That he is innocent. That he has been set up to take a fall. Thirty-odd years ago I knew this beautiful woman named Marti. We were good friends who never (well, almost never) let the boy-girl thing complicate our friendship. We were always giving each other books to read and music to listen to. The book begins with sheriff's deputy, Jaye Winston, bringing Terry a current murder case file that scares her deeply. It involves a gruesome murder with bizarre and dark artistic elements that makes her think a serial killer may be at work. Jaye asks Terry to look over the case file and let her know his thoughts because the police are getting nowhere on it. However, the trouble begins after Terry performs his analysis and the clues point him towards a certain police officer that he knows from a previous investigation before retiring – LAPD’s own Harry Bosch. Michael Connelly writes about crime fiction and detective mysteries and has innumerable fans across the globe, including Bill Clinton! The Lost Light takes that same theme and was slated as one of the Best Books of 2003 by the Los Angeles Times.

The reader understands immediately, even if Winston doesn't, that once this case gets its hooks into McCaleb, it's not going to let go. Civilian or not, and whether anyone wants him to or not, McCaleb will wind up in the middle of it. And the deeper McCaleb digs into the case, the more the evidence leads him in the direction of a startling suspect. Arc Words: It is with this novel that "man on a mission" truly coalesces as Connelly's express characterization of Bosch, though he has made reference to it in past works. Since his normally minimalist narrative style wouldn't really suit such a relatively colorful description in most Bosch novels, here we get it as part of the notes profiler Terry McCaleb took when he first worked with Bosch years ago. Anyway, Terrence McClam doesn't even make a good investigator, let alone a trained profiler. His style is more of a "I got a square piece of evidence here, how do I cram it into the triangular hole of the 'gut instinct' theory I literally was fed by the killer's misdirection?" method than "Let's look at the evidence and see where it actually takes us" method. Literally as soon as the painter Bosch was mentioned, Tryhard McFailure stopped investigating the case and started fitting the investigation around Bosch the detective.A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read. An intricate plot, rich characterization and deft dialogue play out our medieval moralities in modern dress…” Compare that to the later books in the series where we find a Harry Bosch notably mellower in his older age, where we find endings easily guessed at, where procedure begins to trump a superb plot. Bosch no longer smokes, doesn't drink and drive, doesn't slap people around anymore, where his defiance of LAPD authority is tempered by retirement, and let's face it, where my heart just doesn't race as often anymore. Let's say that his later novels are beginning to show an author's haste (is it me, or are the novels shorter and shorter?) High-Class Call Girl: Turns out that Annabelle Crowe teeters on the edge of this, accepting cash and other gifts from the men she goes out with. This does not help when she testifies for the prosecution in the David Storey trial.

As the book opens, Bosch is assisting the prosecution in a high-profile Hollywood murder trial. A movie director is charged with murdering a young actress and then attempting to make the killing look like an accidental death. Bosch was the lead detective on the case and made the arrest. Unfortunately, Terry McBlah has a starring role, and this book is more of his story than a Bosch story. Which is... fine. It's fine. If I ever do a re-read of this series, I'll just skip this dud. Over eighty million copies of Connelly’s books have sold worldwide and he has been translated into forty-five foreign languages. He has won the Edgar Award, Anthony Award, Macavity Award, Los Angeles Times Best Mystery/Thriller Award, Shamus Award, Dilys Award, Nero Award, Barry Award, Audie Award, Ridley Award, Maltese Falcon Award (Japan), .38 Caliber Award (France), Grand Prix Award (France), Premio Bancarella Award (Italy), and the Pepe Carvalho award (Spain) . Chaste Hero: Bosch tells Kiz he's not interested in meeting someone new because he's leaving the door open for Divorce Is Temporary. Moot because the "someone new" in question is Jaye Winston, who's actually just investigating Bosch. As soon as he hears who it is, he puts two and two together. We Meet Again: McCaleb, word for word, after using the term "UnSub" to refer to Gunn's killer in his notes.One Phone Call: A plot point, as McCaleb wonders how Gunn got bailed out of jail when his phone call to his sister was rejected.

What are unique aspects of this volume? Well, we already know that Hopper’s Nighthawks is a painting Bosch has on the wall; we are led to see him as still tunneling through darkness, a Nighthawk, a loner. Bosch worked in the dark tunnels in Vietnam, and we are to see him as still tunneling through darkness in so many ways. But Bosch’s first name is actually Hieronymous, after the seventeenth-century painter (his murdered prostitute mother liked his work). The painter (who painted dozens of ambitious paintings died at the age of 26!) depicted what he saw as the state of the world, reflecting in fantastical manner Connelly allows Bosch and McCaleb to regard each other critically in ways that sharpen the reader’s perception of them…” Plea Bargain: Rudy Tafero exposes David Storey in exchange for avoiding the death penalty. After Tafero produces evidence to keep people from suspecting he's lying to save his own life, Storey agrees to plead guilty so he'll also avoid the death penalty. A discourse follows on what motivates homicide detectives: "For some it would seem as almost a game to prove they were better, smarter, more cunning than their quarry. Others saw themselves as being speakers for the dead. There was a sacred bond cast between victim and cop that formed at the crime scene and could not be severed." Terry McCaleb is a former FBI profiler who - after a heart transplant - moved to Catalina Island with his wife, stepson, and baby girl. Terry now runs a charter fishing business and tries to avoid stress.

After graduating in 1980, Connelly worked at newspapers in Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, primarily specializing in the crime beat. In Fort Lauderdale he wrote about police and crime during the height of the murder and violence wave that rolled over South Florida during the so-called cocaine wars. In 1986, he and two other reporters spent several months interviewing survivors of a major airline crash. They wrote a magazine story on the crash and the survivors which was later short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. The magazine story also moved Connelly into the upper levels of journalism, landing him a job as a crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times, one of the largest papers in the country, and bringing him to the city of which his literary hero, Chandler, had written. Not one to start the series off with but definitely one to advance it. I’m glad I read the standalone “Blood Work” before reading this (even if I disliked it) as the main characters from that are in this one and there are some things that happen in that which influence this book. Not essentially, but advisory. Yet again though, Connolly reminds me why he is one of my top “go to” authors with a great novel. Looking forward to the next one. As the case against Harry Bosch grows and more homicide investigators and the FBI itself are drawn into the case, McCaleb learns Winston has become "a believer" that Harry Bosch is the killer. She tells him of Harry's past, that Harry's mother was a Hollywood prostitute murdered when Harry was a little kid. The murder victim, she reminds McCaleb, had gotten away with murder in the slaying of a Hollywood prostitute. Vengeance completes the profile, McCaleb knows. The evidence is overwhelmingly conclusive. Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads' database with this name. See this thread for more information.