The Black Echo - Michael Connelly

Having read all of (now sadly departed) Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen novels, and being up to date with both Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone Alphabet and (to the best of my knowledge - my reading has been a bit hotchpotch here) Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta series, I am in need of some fresh crime fiction and a new detective hero/heroine.

I tried The Closers a few months ago but gave up after a few pages as the book needed to go back to the library, but I'd picked this one up for a pound at a S&S charity book sale, and found it much easier to get into. Set in LA, not a million miles from Kinsey Millhone's Santa Theresa turf, The Black Echo deals with a much darker world - the crimes investigated by the homicide team in the not so whiter than white LAPD.

In this novel, less than perfect Harry Bosch is digging into the drug-related death of a fellow Vietnam veteran and getting caught up in the more complex world of the FBI and sophisticated high value bank vault robberies.

If you like The Wire, then I think you'll like Harry Bosch.

And having just looked up the Amazon.co.uk link, I see that this is the first Harry Bosch novel. Excellent - no need to try to work out how best to backtrack to the start of the story... I just need to know which one comes next....

Amazon.co.uk link: The Black Echo - Michael Connelly