Harry Bosch, Book 13

Lots of references to Echo Park and the screw up that it was, in this book. I didn't recall that in the last book, but, hey, let's go with it.

This is a short book. I read it in two evenings, with a monster headache happening during both evenings. It was classic Bosch: someone dies, he follows a trail, OH LOOK IT MIGHT BE ANOTHER BAD COP (you weren't going to read this far into the series, were you? Okay, maybe you are, but I can't possibly be spoiling the plot or the outcome because THAT'S HOW EVER SINGLE BOSCH BOOK ENDS: the bad cop did it). There was only a passing reference to a tunnel.

Surprisingly little jazz in this book.

And no woman / sex line. More than a little refreshing. Oh, and a new partner! Who doesn't go along with Bosch! Win!

My conversation about the book at work went something like:

luke
> Not recommended if you haven't read the previous 12 books in the series and liked them
I feel like this is the reading equivalent of "It gets good about 40 hours in"

kitt
Nope. Never really gets good. I just like the cranky main character.
Here's the plot of every book in the series: someone dies. a bad cop did it. tunnels.

luke
tunnels?!

kitt
tunnels.

Yeah, so, if you're reading the series, clearly you like them enough to keep going, so yes, read this one, too. If you haven't read any Bosch, read books 1-3 first and see if you can stand this many in this series. I'm going to 19, or two bad ones in a row, which ever comes first!

The dust jacket blurb is awful:

Wool introduced the silo and its inhabitants. Shift told the story of their making. Dust will chronicle their undoing. Welcome to the underground.

The book, however, is great. There were a number of parts in the book where I just hated to keep reading. All of them were parts of people being assholes to other people. There's looking out for your own needs, and then there's just plain greed. The former I understand, the latter I do not. The deliberate claiming of another person as property I also cannot stand.

Upside to this book, it has as close to a happy ending as you can get in a book with the previous two books Wool and Shift prior in the series. The plot in this world doesn't jump between centuries, making it easier to read. It wraps the saga up nicely, lots of small mysteries solved, which was nice.

I recommend reading this book (after the previous two, of course, it'll make no sense without those two first).