If there has been one constant in Michael Connelly’s excellent 13-or-so novels of Harry Bosch, it’s the city of Los Angeles. Not since Raymond Chandler has L.A. been so essential to a crime series, even to a few of its titles: ECHO PARK, ANGELS FLIGHT and (slightly more esoteric) THE NARROWS. While Bosch himself has been through many changes, including a brief period away from the LAPD, Los Angeles has remained the anchor to all his activities.
So if there is a reason for Bosch to leave Los Angeles, it better be a damned good one. And NINE DRAGONS gives him one. The story begins with Homicide Detective Bosch responding to a shooting at Fortune Liquors, a small shop in south L.A. The victim is store owner John Li, whom Bosch met several years ago (in ANGLES FLIGHT). Since the store is in the center a gang-plagued area, the automatic assumption is that the murder was the result of an attempted robbery.
Bosch notices several factors that don’t fit with many of the previous gang robbery-shootings. Still, he vows to Li’s family that he will find the killer. Because they are immigrants who barely speak English, Bosch enlists the help of a detective from the Asian Gang Unit. With this assistance, he traces the killing to protection payoffs Li made to members of The Triad, a Chinese crime ring with roots deep in the country’s history.
As Bosch narrows down on a potential bagman shooter, he gets an anonymous phone call warning him to back off. Almost immediately thereafter, he receives evidence that his young daughter, who has been living in Hong Kong with Bosch’s divorced wife, has been kidnapped.
Suddenly, Bosch drops everything, catches the next flight to Hong Kong, and begins an exhausting 39-hour chase through Kowloon (or Nine Dragons, as translated into English), aided by his wife’s Chinese lover, to find his daughter before his kidnappers fulfill their ghastly intentions for the young girl.
Taking a main character out of the setting so associated with his identity is risky, to say the least. But Connelly depicts the streets of Kowloon with a fascinating and hurried combination of urban sprawl and exotic tradition, where the air of the overly crowded streets is thick with the smoke of burnt sacrifices during observances to the Hungry Ghosts. Bosch hardly has time to dwell on the abrupt change of scenery, but it’s certain that he is a disadvantaged stranger in this strange land. This displacement along with the breakneck pacing of these chapters hardly allows time to get homesick for L.A.
But driving the narrative even stronger is Bosch’s relentlessness. While he has always been driven by an unshakeable code of devotedness to murder victims, we haven’t experienced him so personally motivated in several years. Because it’s so personal, it makes him careless at times, which leads to explosive, unexpected violence and deep reaching consequences — all the more reason why it’s impossible to stop reading once started.
Then, just when we think we can breathe a little easier, Connelly tosses in some narrative monkey wrenches that change the entire thrust of the Li murder investigation. While these revelations effectively underscore the reality of nothing ever being what it seems, they also come close to dampening the effect of everything that happened earlier. They all lead to an unsettling conclusion, but some readers may wonder if the sudden readjustments were really necessary.
Those who have somehow been immune to Connelly and Bosch would be better served starting with the earlier novels in the series, especially those prior to LOST LIGHT. It won’t be long before you find yourself up to speed and longing for the rest of the series.
For the rest of us Bosch devotees, rush out immediately and get NINE DRAGONS, as if any such encouragement were needed. Like the best of any series, it will leave you guessing about what will happen next in his saga. —Alan Cranis
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• THE BRASS VERDICT by Michael Connelly
• CRIME BEAT: A DECADE OF COVERING COPS & KILLERS by Michael Connelly
• ECHO PARK by Michael Connelly
• MYSTERY WRITERS OF AMERICA PRESENTS IN THE SHADOW OF THE MASTER: CLASSIC TALES BY EDGAR ALLAN POE edited by Michael Connelly
• MURDER IN VEGAS: NEW CRIME TALES OF GAMBLING AND DESPERATION edited by Michael Connelly
• MYSTERY WRITERS OF AMERICA PRESENTS THE BLUE RELIGION: NEW STORIES ABOUT COPS, CRIMINALS, AND THE CHASE edited by Michael Connelly
• THE OVERLOOK by Michael Connelly
• THE SCARECROW by Michael Connelly
Related posts:
- The Overlook
- The Brass Verdict
- Echo Park
- Dead Man’s Hand: Crime Fiction at the Poker Table
- The Scarecrow
