READER'S SUBJECTIV REVIEW FOLLOWS:City of Bones is the first in my efforts to read Michael Connelly's dated novels of his considerable catalogue. Joe Pike and Elvis Cole, who I lump with Bosch because they're LA creations of Robert Crais, seem to be more on the cutting edge of interesting novels, but City of Bones is a bittersweet examination of the search for redemption. So it's not particularly uplifting at the end, but may well be one of Connelly's best literary efforts considering the rejection, depression, horror and second guessing he had to give of himself to write this book. As an author, I know that a little bit of you goes into what you write, and City of Bones may well have been painful for Connelly to create and give life. I suppose my weakness is that a book that leaves me exhilarated upon completion is five stars. I clearly didn't feel up after finishing City of Bones, just admiring one hell of a job by an outstanding author. After I read 'Spencerville' I conversed with Nelson DeMille and told him that book grabbed my soul--like Pink Floyd. He told me it was one of his worst sellers, but it's still my favorite. I think City of Bones has that kind of potential over the long run. You won't be happy or excited or better when you finish City of Bones, but your soul will be better for the experience.SPOILER PLOT SUMMARY FOLLOWS:The Search for Redemption. LAPD Hollywood Div Detective Harry Bosch was having a bad day with two suicides before the call to go check out a human bone found by a pet dog on a hillside leading up to the mountains. Bosch couldn't blow it off as the bone was found by a retired doctor's pet. Upon examination it was confirmed to be the humerus bone of a young man and so the investigation started with the media going berserk. IDing the body was impossible with the only clues dating the murder back 20 years. Early in the crime scene investigation, Harry meets Rookie Officer Julia Brasher, who joined the force after practicing law for years and then traveling extensively. The two become lovers-ignoring PD policy-and Harry comes to know Julia as a lost soul in search of meaning. He learns too late that she admired Bosch because his life had meaning. The case gets jump started when an appeal to the public turns up a woman who said her little brother disappeared about the same time frame as the projected murder. Sheila Delacroix ends up providing enough evidence to ID the victim as her brother Arthur, but gets vague on details about the abuse of the boy related by the coroner's report. While investigating the neighbors, the media jumps in and publicizes that a single man living close to the crime scene had been a pedophile, even though nothing linked him to the case. Nicholas Trent commits suicide after the media storm, but Bosch discovers a skateboard in Trent's house that ultimately is ID'd as having belonged to Arthur. After putting out a BOLO on Johnny Stokes, a childhood friend of Arthur's, Bosch and Edgar go interview Arthur's father who had abandoned his daughter not long after Arthur's disappearance. Sam the father immediately confesses but Bosch smells a rat. As soon as he gets Sam into custody, an alert is issued on the Stokes BOLO and a takedown team is set up to grab him from the carwash he works at. Things go very bad with the takedown as Stokes gives Bosch the slip, ran for it and is caught in a parking garage by Julia Brasher. While putting her gun away to cuff Stokes, she shoots herself in the shoulder, the bullet ricocheting and killing her. Bosch leaves Julia at the garage thinking that she's merely wounded to take Stokes in and get his story. No charges are filed against Stokes as Bosch fights depression, but finally decides to return to Sam's trailer and search it, finding old Polaroids of Sam sexually abusing his daughter Sheila. When it becomes evident that the brutal abuse of Arthur had come from his sister in retribution for her father's sexual abuse, Bosch tracks down former residents on the crime scene street who were foster parents to over 100 kids, including Johnny Stokes when they lived on the street of the crime scene. Before Bosch can get back to LA, Stokes is seen hiding in a crack house and is killed by Julia's partner and training instructor Edgewood with a throwaway pistol before Bosch can get to him. The takedown team had learned that Stokes couldn't be tried as an adult for a crime committed while a juvenile, hence the cold blooded elimination of Stokes. Bosch is promoted back to the major leagues Robbery and Homicide Division, effective the day after Arthur Delacroix' belated by 20 years funeral. Bosch decides to hang it up instead of report to RHD and leaves his badge, ID and gun in his desk on the last day of work.
The title of Michael Connelly’s eighth book to feature his hero-detective Harry Bosch, “City of Bones”, refers to a term used by crime scene investigators to describe the sight of an old crime scene, where the body has deteriorated down to the bones. Oftentimes nature will scatter bones throughout a general area, especially if the grave is a shallow one, and the resultant grid that CSI forms is dubbed a “city of bones”.The title has another, more metaphorical, meaning, as well. It refers to the fact that, like bones in a shallow grave, everyone has a secret story to tell. Everyone has skeletons in the closet.When a dog brings his owner a human bone back from the Hollywood Hills, Detective Bosch is called to the scene. It’s New Year’s Day. Bosch isn’t expecting much. He doesn’t even think the bone is human, but he is required to check anyway.Unfortunately, Bosch finds the rest of the body. It is that of a child. It’s been in the ground for roughly 20 years. The case affects Bosch emotionally, for reasons that he can’t even explain. It brings back memories of his childhood as an orphan, shuffled through foster homes. It forces him to remember how lonely and depressed he was as a child and how those feelings haven’t really gone too far. The case also quickly becomes a media-driven spectacle.When news of the case leaks to the press, it results in the suicide of a potential suspect, a man whose horrible secrets---while having nothing to do with the present case---have inadvertently come back to haunt him.Now Internal Affairs is breathing down Bosch’s neck. They think he either purposely leaked info or accidentally let the info get to the press. In either case, it’s a total fuck-up and a serious impediment to the case.On top of all this, Bosch has begun dating a rookie cop. Besides being a violation of departmental regulations (Bosch is, after all, a senior officer), it also may be interfering with the case. He also suspects that she is hiding something pretty bad from her own past, something that has repercussions on her present state of mind.Everyone involved in the case seems to have some secret from the past that haunts him or her. Skeletons are pouring out of closets. For once, Bosch isn’t the only one dealing with a turbulent past.As always, Connelly creates a gripping and emotional story. His police procedural is, as always, fascinating and probably more in-depth and realistic than any episode of CSI or Law & Order. It’s the human element, though, that truly breathes life in to this “city of bones”.
What do You think about City Of Bones (2006)?
This is the 8th Harry Bosch novel and I'm happy there are more books about him. I like the character a lot, he is deep, while he slightly falls into the rogue detective stereotype, he's still bad-ass and smart. This story revolves around bones found in the woods from a body buried there 20 years before. Bosch was able to resolve the murder in the usual Michael Connelly formula of finding guilt in a suspect just to be exonerated, do that twice and by the third time Bosch will get to the real culprit. The story will grab you with the great detective work and even a bit of romance with a rookie cop. There is a cliffhanger moment at the end, so now getting ready to read the next story.
—Yvonne Mendez
I enjoyed this book, although not quite as much as some of Connelly's others. It was very well written, as are all of his books, and the character development of Harry Bosch is quite well done. The plot was straightforward, and the twist at the end was a surprise, and one done very well. My only criticism of the book is the constant reference to the relationship between the media and law enforcement -- this seemed somewhat overdone, but maybe things really are that way. Not being in either field, I don't really know.
—David Jarrett
BEWARE OF SPOILERS. I DON'T HIDE OR PROMOTE MY REVIEWS.Connelly is one of my favorite crime writers. This is another feather in his cap. But I don't read his books in order, as I get them catch as catch can from the public library.This one is old (2002) but wonderful for several reasons.We see Los Angeles police detective Harry Bosch with partner J. Edgar working a case involving fresh discovery of a boy's old bones. The death happened several decades ago, but the bones still clearly tell a tale of chronic physical abuse.I liked the succession of suspects that Harry tries on, then discards, as new evidence becomes available. Turns out the boy's abuser and his murderer are not one and the same.It's also interesting to see Harry on the verge of a romance -- with a rookie police officer this time -- though circumstances abruptly end the relationship. Throughout, Connelly weaves in his insights about police politics, police p.r., police-media tensions, man's violent nature. I love his descriptions of Harry's intuitions and piercing evaluations of other people's body language, voice, demeanor, belongings, habitat, "tells."The book's title, which refers to L.A., arises from both the murder case at hand and the ancient murder of a female whose bones rose in modern time to the surface of the La Brea tar pit. (A forensic anthropologist on retainer to the LAPD tells Bosch at one point that the boy's skull fractures are similar the those on the female skeleton pulled from the tar pit, meaning murder has always been with us, no matter the century.)Bosch's final act of the book is shocking. But thankfully, I already know from subsequent books, Bosch backtracks on his drastic decision.
—J
