Echo Park

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

LAPD Detective Harry Bosch in a modern thriller from No. 1 bestseller Michael Connelly - author of THE LINCOLN LAWYER and ANGELS FLIGHT.

In 1993 Homicide Detective Harry Bosch was assigned the case of a missing person, Marie Gesto. The young woman was never found - dead or alive - and the case has haunted Bosch ever since.

Thirteen years later, Bosch is back in the Open Unsolved Crimes Unit when he gets a call from the DA's office. A man accused of two killings is willing to confess to several other murders in a deal to avoid the death penalty. One of his victims, he says, is Marie Gesto.

When investigating these previously unsolved crimes, Bosch begins to crack when he realises that he and his partner missed a clue that could have prevented the serial killer striking again.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

After an accused serial killer confesses to a long-ago murder that Harry Bosch couldn't crack, Harry realizes he missed a vital clue that might have put the man behind bars and saved lives. Not a good feeling. With a seven-city tour. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

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. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

\rtf1\ansi\deff0Harry Bosch is still on the job, working out of LAPD's Open Unsolved Unit, and despite his best efforts at holding his antiestablishment impulses in check, he's in trouble again. This time the problem is an unsolved case that has haunted Harry since 1993. Now it appears that the killer has been caught, apprehended by chance and connected to a string of nine additional murders. As cops and prosecutors debate a plea bargain\emdash the killer will confess to the murders if he can avoid the death penalty\emdash it is revealed that Harry and his partner may have missed a crucial clue back in 1993 that could have solved the case then and prevented the later murders. But something doesn't feel right. As in The Closers0 (2005), Harry once again may be the victim of a politically inspired conspiracy, or high jingo in cop talk. Connelly remains a master at constructing plots that, like contrapuntal themes in music, echo one another. As we watch Harry confront the train wreck that could destroy his career, we also see him dealing with a potentially even more serious crisis being played out internally: Can he recover from the knowledge that his oversight may have resulted in nine murders? Is he a good cop with no tolerance for phonies, or is he, in fact, as his enemies have always argued, an uncontrollable rogue whose hubris costs lives? The answers to these questions are not as clear cut as one might assume, with Connelly forcing Harry's many fans to accept the harsh truth that the genre's most compelling hero may also be one of its most flawed. Superior crime fiction, as suspenseful as it is psychologically acute. --Bill Ott Copyright 2006 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

Harry Bosch, back with the LAPD in the Open-Unresolved Unit (The Closers, 2005), wrestles with a teasing case from his salad days in Hollywood homicide. Back in 1993, equestrienne Marie Gesto vanished without a trace. Ten days later, her car turned up in the garage of a landmark apartment building, her clothing neatly folded inside. Then nothing, from that day to this. Harry Bosch, who caught the case, worked it obsessively and even took a copy of the open file into retirement with him. Frustrated that he could never make a case against Anthony Garland, the worthless son of a high-rolling oilman, Bosch reviewed the evidence every chance he had when he was back on the job in Open-Unresolved. Now, suddenly, the crime has evidently been solved without his lifting a finger. Raynard Waits, a window-cleaner caught red-handed with the dismembered body parts of two murder victims in his car, is trying to avoid the needle by confessing to nine earlier homicides, including Marie Gesto's. But Harry can't help looking this gift horse in the mouth. He doesn't trust Freddy Olivas, the Northeast homicide detective in charge of the case, or Rick O'Shea, the prosecutor who plans to ride it into the top job at the DA's office. And he doesn't trust Waits, not even when he provides information about the crime only the killer could know and offers to lead the cops to the spot where he buried Marie Gesto. Readers who feel confident they can see what's coming will be thrown off-stride by the crafty series of surprises Connelly has up his sleeve. But nobody familiar with Bosch's checkered career will be shocked when the malfeasance reaches past Raynard Waits to the highest levels of city government. Connelly offers a stellar demonstration of why, as Harry says, "taking it straight to the heart is the way of the true detective," whatever the costs to himself and others. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.