The Burning
Room is Michael Connelly’s 19th installment in his popular Harry
Bosch series. With only a year left on
his DROP (Deferred Retirement Option Program) contract as part of the Open
Unsolved Unit of the LAPD, Bosch has developed a melancholy spirit with many
flashbacks to days gone by. His latest
partner, the young intense Lucia Soto is dubbed ‘Lucky Lucy’ for her heroic
involvement in a police shoot out a year earlier. Lucy has a lot to learn and Harry is just the
right teacher. Melancholy spirit aside,
Harry still has the instinct to sort out the clues and the skill to extract information
from relevant players. Plus he still
enjoys riding the adrenalin fueled momentum that occurs just before he solves a
case.
Harry and
Lucy are assigned to a high profile case involving the murder of a mariachi
musician. The shooting occurred ten years
earlier in the busy Mariachi Plaza but the victim dies just recently of lead
poisoning brought on by the bullet being lodged in his spine for a decade. To Harry’s chagrin, the former mayor who
currently has gubernatorial aspirations offers a fifty thousand dollar reward
for information leading to an arrest.
Harry has to manipulate the department bureaucrats to get help answering
the barrage of nuisance calls brought on by the reward. He does this by asking the receptionist to
transfer all these calls to the Captain in his unit responsible for manpower…
clever.
A review of
the old case files combined with ballistics on the extracted bullet lead Bosch
and Soto in a completely different direction from the original investigation. They see from public surveillance videos that
the dead musician was not the intended target.
The ballistics report shows the bullet was fired from a hunting rifle
probably from a nearby hotel window.
After running down each of the other band members, the intended victim
is found in Tulsa now running a bar. The
musician reveals that he was having an affair with a powerful business owner’s wife
and had left L.A. because of threats from the husband. Interestingly, Soto finds that the business
owner is a strong financial supporter of the former mayor… the one offering the
reward.
Meanwhile
Bosch discovers the root of his young partner’s passion for police work. As a child she nearly died in an apartment
building fire. The names of her childhood
friends who died of smoke inhalation in the building’s basement daycare (the burning room) are
tattooed on her arm. Her purpose in life
is to find who set this fire. Harry
agrees to help her but on his terms and under the radar of department
bureaucracy.
In both cases
Harry is long on suspicion and short on evidence. He calls in favors from contacts in the FBI
and in city government as well as from a reporter at the L.A. Times. A pro at department politics, Bosch
discriminately withholds information about his cases from his superiors. Harry knows that implicating the former mayor
without sufficient evidence would end his involvement in the case and probably
his career.
The Burning
Room firmly defends Michael Connelly’s position at the top of my power
rotation. This is Harry Bosch at his
best. With retirement pending Harry’s
past is on his mind. He frequently
flashes back to old cases, former partners and past lovers, rationalizing the
sacrifices he has made for the job. Yet he stays focused on his current dynamic
caseload. Harry has retained his old
school values and methods and has embraced technology well enough to remain
highly effective. But will his cynicism
and lack of respect for authority finally end his career? Apparently Connelly has great plans for Harry
as evidenced by his new series, ‘Bosch’ produced by Amazon Studios and starring
Titus Welliver. Let’s hope the print
version continues as well.
excellent review, excellent read
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