Harry Bosch has been on the crime thriller landscape since his debut in 1992.
The book was The Black Echo, and there’s certainly a black echo resounding in the latest Bosch bonanza, THE HOLLOW.
The title comes from a punishment room used in the orphanage Bosch grew up in. It is where, in 1965, his fellow “inmate” Charles Lamb, known as Chops, met with murder.
The killing went unsolved but now a half century later, that cold case collides with a clear and present danger, involving the theft of weapons of mass destruction.
Harry Bosch is now 75, with a new knee. But he’s s still got the old nose that can sniff out suspects, take the scent of a lead, and detect through due diligence. He’s retired from the LAPD but he just can’t let go of a lifetime of investigation.
Instinct and experience lead to an expertise that can not only catch a psychopathic killer but solve a national security breach by arms smugglers. The Harry Bosch series has become a franchise, stories built on multiple storeys. The ground floor is Harry, the ascending floors are inhabited by characters by characters old and new.
There’s Renee Ballard and Mickey Haller makes a cameo as does Harry’s daughter, Maddie. Fresh faces include FBI agents and a particularly nasty nemesis, Novak.
THE HOLLOW is a work of fiction but some of the story is real. Intertwined in the twisty multi level thriller is the Wonderland massacre, the 1981 multiple homicide for which, to this day, no one has been convicted.
MacLaren Hall, where Harry spent time as a child, was a real place and the lawsuits cited in the story and the four billion dollar settlement reached with Los Angeles County over the horrors and abuse that occurred there are real.
Once again, Michael Connolly delivers a riveting read, deftly mixing and melding fact and fiction in a thriller that echos the past into a resoundingly contemporary setting.
THE HOLLOW by Michael Connelly is published by Allen & Unwin.
