In an attempt to fill the void left by Jack Reacher I’ve been on
the lookout for a new series to read and after watching the TV show I decided
to read the The Burning Room by Michael Connelly.
The Burning Room is
my first Harry Bosch novel and the 19th overall which means I can continue my
tradition of starting new series in the wrong place.
I'll be honest I was a bit disappointed by this book at first and
found it to be really slow for the first 100 pages or so. In fact those first
100 pages were so slow in fact I almost gave up on the book altogether (which I
haven’t done for ages).
There are detailed sections about police procedures and processes.
Whilst being insightful, it defeats the point of what is supposed to be a high
octane thriller. The story metaphorically speaking is like a stagnant river. There's virtually nothing happening. In this context, it is stale with elements of
action and excitement missing to grip readers. I admire Bosch's qualities as a
police officer. He always thinks about the victims and sometimes breaks the rules to get results. As a consequence, Bosch often gets himself into trouble
with his bosses, In that respect he puts me in mind of DCI Banks.
If truth be told, this isn't a riveting story. Interesting, of course, but not one to set the pulse racing. Bosch has a new partner in the form of rookie detective Lucy Soto and at the beginning she is - in her spare time - trying to find out who caused a fire in an L.A. day-care centre 21 years earlier, a fire that she survived as a seven-year-old but which took the lives of several people including young children.
Meanwhile the case that she and
Bosch are officially working on is the murder of a Mexican musician who had
been in a coma for ten years. So while the shooting of Orlando Merced may have
taken place long enough ago to be classified as a cold case - which is the type
of crime that Bosch specialises in - the actual death happened only a few hours
before this story begins.
It's therefore something of a
stretch to the imagination to learn that the two crimes have a connection,
although that's what does tend to happen in crime fiction sometimes. The only
thing Bosch and Soto have to go on is the bullet from the late Merced's spine,
and somehow that's enough for an investigation that traverses several regions
of California and beyond.
There isn't anything else to the
story however; no sub-strands or multi-layers apart from some stuff about
Bosch’s daughter Maddie who's following in her dad's footsteps , this is the sum total of what it's about, which is a
shame as the main storyline is a bit weak.
I think the reason this book is a bit disappointing is
that at the time it was being written Connelly was busy with the new Bosch TV
show on Amazon, which might explain why it’s not as good as his previous books.
However, The Burning Room being a disappointment
hasn’t put me off Bosch and will be trying some of the earlier books namely The
Drop, A Darkness More Than night, Trunk Music and The Last Coyote. I’ll let you know how I
get on with those when I read them.
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