Lost Light (Harry Bosch Series) - Hardcover

Connelly, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0752856561 ISBN 13: 9780752856568

Publisher: Orion, 2003

Synopsis

Reviewers and readers agree that Michael Connelly is writing at the top of his game, giving us crime fiction about the dark side of Los Angeles and reinventing the form with every book he writes. At the end of CITY OF BONES Bosch quit the LAPD, but he's back in a new role, one that will give him more freedom to pursue the cases that compel him.

When he left the LAPD Bosch took a file with him - the case of a film production assistant murdered four years earlier during a $2 million robbery on a movie set. The LAPD - now operating under post 9/11 rules - think the stolen money was used to finance a terrorist training camp. Thoughts of the original murder victim are lost in the federal zeal, and when it seems the killer will be set free to aid the feds' terrorist hunt, Bosch quickly finds himself in conflict with his old colleagues and with the FBI.

About this title

Review:

Michael Connolly has written seven books featuring the hard-boiled Vietnam vet-turned-LAPD detective Harry Bosch and Lost Light sees him ride again. The astringent and vivid realisation of the city of Los Angeles (quite as sharply done as in the great novels of Raymond Chandler) and the layers of complexity created for Bosch made him one of the most interesting and well-realised characters in modern crime fiction. Even the overused device of alcohol abuse in the detective was treated with freshness and imagination. Such non-Bosch titles as Chasing the Dime have their virtues, but most admirers will frankly be relieved that Harry is back in action.

When Harry Bosch left the LAPD, he took with him a murder file about a film production assistant killed four years before during a large-scale robbery on a movie set. The LAPD has decided that the stolen money was utilised to create a terrorist training camp, and there are moves to release the killer to enable the FBI to track down the terrorists. Needless to say, this does not go down well with the volatile Harry, and he soon finds himself up against his erstwhile colleagues at the LAPD and the implacable forces of the FBI.

In the earlier Bosch novels, it's clear that the flintily wrought characterisation and gritty scene-setting concealed some less-than-original plots, but here we've got a triumphant marriage of innovative, hard-edge narrative and a parade of characters quite as vivid as any in the genre. The set pieces have all the usual panache, and the larger and more detailed canvas is carried off with considerable dash. --Barry Forshaw

Review:

'Lost Light is every bit as good as Connelly's eight other Harry Bosch novels, which is to say very good indeed. In the hands of lesser writers, putting their hero into retirement might suggest that they were running out of ideas.In Connelly's case, it seems to presage an outpouring of equally excellent stories seen from a different angle: Lost Light, unlike the other eight Harry Bosch novels, is written in the first person. For the first time, readers enter the complex mind of one of the most interesting detectives in American crime fiction. Marcel Berlins THE TIMES 26/4/03 'Lost Light is a wry, character-driven autumnal affair...A lonely, self-deprecating figure, Bosch is an engaging throwback to a time before email and faxes when ageing private dicks learnt to play the sax and used expressions such as 'get jazzed'. Yet it is 'things of the heart' that really excite him... If ever a PI deserved a warm cuddly denouement, it is Harry Bosch.' DAILY TELEGRAPH 26/4/03 'It's good to see Harry Bosch, the hero of so many of Michael Connell's books, back in action after his retirement from the LAPD... Lost Light shows that Harry is still a maverick, continuing to go his own way despite warnings, and persevering until he has uncovered evidence of a shameful conspiracy. This new book shows why the Bosch series has made Connelly one of the genre's most consistently enjoyable writers.' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 25/5/03 'Lost Light transcends the usual narrow confines of crime fiction. Many American authors brought out books in the wake of September 11, often as exploitative patriotism. Connelly goes deeper: he shows how American society has allowed its values to be undermined ... this is a brave and complex book far removed from the baggy shapelessness of much recent US crime writing.' Jane Jakeman, SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY 23/3/03 'The best crime fiction uses the extreme nature of death to examine the fragile realities of life, and Connelly is writing the best detective fiction out there.' Michael Carlson THE SPECTATOR 14/6/03 'A real return to form for Connelly, and a welcome return to action for Harry Bosch. Lost Light is a gripping, intense novel; Bosch is a complex but very human character and Lost Light will cement Connelly's reputation.' CRIME TIME '[A] brilliantly integrated novel.' THE SUNDAY TIMES 20/3/03 'Lost Light is something to be savoured: a new thriller featuring old sourpuss Harry Bosch. ... Weaving a complex plot - nobody does it better - Connelly holds the reader's attention right up to the satisfying denouement.' IRISH TIMES 28/6/03 'Warm, astute, persuasive portrait of conscience driven Bosch, his occupation gone, passing his days trying not to smoke... A first-to-last page gripper with dogged detective work, a shoot-out so unexpected that it had me ducking for cover, and an anxiety about police power that is proper, timely and authentic. All set out to prose that's too modest to brag about its muscle (Bosch sees 'a woman so pale ... she might detonate like a match on the Nevada sun') and so well tuned that it delights and nudges the memory for weeks after first reading.' Philip Oakes LITERARY REVIEW May 03 'terrific thriller' TIME OUT 10 September 'Harry Bosch is a great creation, complex, emotionally vulnerable but honest to the core and, as he defiesthe might of the FBI in search of the truth, his bleakness of spirit lifts and the book's surprise ending gives him a great stake in the future. Thoroughly rewarding.' IRISH INDEPENDENT 26/4/03 'Lost Light is a new high for Connelly ... by the way, there's an uplifting epilogue that could have been schmaltzy but instead turns into one of sheer joy.' DUBLIN SUNDAY TRIBUNE 11/5/03 'Bosch and Connelly remain one of the best cop partnerships in the detecting business.' BIRMINGHAM SUNDAY MERCURY 13/4/03

About this edition

• Publisher: Orion
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0752856561
• ISBN 13: 9780752856568
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368