Echo Park

September 4, 2006
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.

January 29, 2007
No matter how much critics and readers love him, Connelly's Harry Bosch is definitely a downer. To catch the spirit of the popular series without sending listeners leaping out of their windows requires an unusually talented reader, who can take the tiny shreds of light the author sprinkles very sparingly through his dark and bloody outings and turn them into veritable bonfires. Fortunately, Cariou is a veteran of four previous Bosch audios who knows his man down to his obsessive socks. Cariou can also do Connelly's normal, only semidepressed supporting characters with grace and depth: Harry's female partner, other cops with mixed motives, crooked lawyers, on-the-make politicians, even a convicted serial killer trying to escape the death penalty by reopening one of Bosch's old wounds. Cariou, of course, can't remove Harry's guilt or ease his obsessions: he's an actor, not a therapist. But his talent adds a Prozac-like sense of ease not to be taken lightly. Simultaneous release with the Little, Brown hardcover (Reviews, Sept. 4).