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Title: Echo Park
Author: Michael Connelly
Audiobook: 2007
Reader: Len Cariou
Unabridged
Length: 10.5 hours

Ears: 4

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In this, the 12^th in the Harry Bosch series, Connelly continues LAPD Detective Hieronymus Bosch’s assignment in the Unsolved Open Case division. Like The Closers, action centers on cases that have remained open for many years. This time Bosch suddenly is confronted with one of his cases that have haunted him since he first investigated it over 13 years previously.

Over the years he has kept in contact with the victim’s parents, revisited the case and stalked his prime suspect whom Bosch believes got away with murder of Marie Gesto . Now all that has changed with the confession of the murder by a serial killer caught with body parts driving through Echo Park. Bosch doesn’t believe the confession which points to a mistake Bosch and his partner made during the original investigation; and when things go terribly wrong, all hell breaks loose.

Connelly is a master of the modern police procedural. He takes us through the logic and process of solving crimes. Not something flashy like CSI on television, more like Law and Order. As the story progresses a mix of LA politics intermingles with culture of police in the LAPD. It all seems very accurate to me and gives you the flavor of life and death in Los Angeles now and in the past.

This story has a pervasive sense of sadness and melancholy as Bosch struggles with relationships of the women in his life. While all the plot points come together in a tight package at the end, (in fact I caught an early clue which was very important), the finish leaves us with an unsettled feeling. Perhaps this is what the author intended.

Len Cariou reads the audiobook as he has done in previous outings. I think Cariou gets it just right with a rather flat and detached reading giving us the feeling of how weary Bosch has become at the age of sixty. I have a good friend who I gave one of the earlier works to listen to on a drive from Austin to Chicago who hated the reading which he felt as “boring”.

For fans of the series Echo Park adds to our understanding Bosch while closing another chapter in his life. We can hope for better times for Harry Bosch.

Reviewed on 7/14/07 by Robert W. Karp