Harry Bosch is back

REVIEWS BY BRUCE TIERNEY

Michael Connelly's latest addition to his best-selling Harry Bosch series, The Closers, finds the somewhat shopworn detective with a new lease on life, albeit not an idyllic one. After a couple of years of trying his hand at private investigation, LAPD detective Bosch is back on the force, this time with the mission of reopening and solving cases which have been on the back burner for decades. His first task is the 1988 murder of a 16-year-old girl, initially treated as a suicide. By the time the investigating officers found conflicting evidence indicating that she was actually murdered, the trail of the killer had grown cold. Although there was some DNA evidence collected at the time, DNA "fingerprinting" was in its infancy in 1988, and nobody was ever charged with the crime. That said, if a present-day suspect can be identified, the DNA is eminently usable today. There is, after all, no statute of limitations on murder. Connelly is one of the most consistently excellent authors in current-day crime fiction: his characters, particularly the world-weary Bosch, are complex and appealing; his stories fast-paced, edgy and believable. It helps (but is by no means de rigeur) to have read the earlier Bosch books in order to appreciate Connelly's ever-increasing skills as a writer, and Bosch's evolution as a human being.


Death stalks socialites

James Crumley novels are not for the weak of stomach—the body count is high and the manner of death often gruesome. In his latest, The Right Madness, one woman inadvertently manages to decapitate herself with a rope, another voluntarily gives her hand to a band saw. If this seems graphic, bear in mind that I have spared you the pages of gory detail that accompany each of the aforementioned examples. Rough-and-ready private eye C.W. Sughrue, on hand for these and several other equally repellent scenes (and responsible for one or two more himself), must find out why Montana socialites are succumbing to violent and unnatural deaths. No stranger to violence himself, Sughrue is uniquely qualified to take his investigations to places forbidden to mainstream law enforcement officers. Author Crumley takes hard-boiled to a whole new level, easily surpassing genre icons Lehane, Pelecanos and Vachss; he is routinely cited as a major influence by up-and-coming crime novelists. His writing borders on poetry at times, not unlike the later works of Thomas McGuane, but with an acid-etched edge rarely matched in contemporary mysteries. The Right Madness is rated "hard-R" for egregious violence, unrepentant drug and alcohol abuse and lurid sexual situations. Don't miss it!


Way out West

Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett returns in C.J. Box's Out of Range. As the book opens, Pickett's archnemesis, his mother-in-law (did you know that "mother-in-law" is a perfect anagram of "woman Hitler"?) is about to be married for the fourth time. It has been quite the production, referred to by close participants as "Operation Massive Ranch Wedding," albeit never within earshot of the prospective bride. During the reception, Pickett receives the news that fellow game warden Will Jensen has committed suicide, and that he (Pickett) has been tapped to be a temporary replacement. It means a short-term move to Jackson Hole, as dissimilar an assignment as can be imagined within the confines of Wyoming. Here Joe will have to navigate a minefield of developers, conservationists, politicians, wealthy landowners and one problematic affair of the heart. Problem one: she's married. Problem two: so's he. Problem three: and not to each other. As if this weren't enough, there is plenty of strain on the home front—anonymous threatening phone calls, an obstinate daughter in the throes of early womanhood and some of the most recalcitrant cell phones in the history of communications. In the midst of all this, Pickett can't seem to shake the notion that there is more to Will Jensen's apparent suicide than meets the eye. Box captures the struggles of a family trying to make ends meet on a civil servant's salary, the workaday life of a game warden and the vast powers of humans pitted against nature (and other humans, for that matter) in one of the last wilderness areas of the continental U.S.A.


MYSTERY OF THE MONTH

This month's Tip of the Ice Pick Award goes to lawyer-turned-author John Burdett for the steamy and seductive Bangkok Tattoo. In this long-awaited follow-up to the sensational Bangkok 8, Thai policeman Sonchai Jitpleecheep returns to investigate the murder of an obnoxious American sex tourist. There is a wrinkle, however: the so-called tourist may be a CIA agent, and there are rumblings of al Qaeda involvement. In the lush, atmospheric reaches of Southeast Asia, however, not all is as it seems. The truth is an elusive commodity, and one that is viewed through an entirely different lens than in the West. The cops are corrupt, the army is worse yet and the Americans are by and large druggies and/or spies. Just to the south, in Malaysia, Muslims of both moderate and radical persuasion angle for converts, while primarily Buddhist Thailand strives to find the revered "center path." As you might imagine, this path is not always clear: for example, we find devout Buddhist Jitpleecheep to be a closet pot smoker, an occasional patron of prostitutes and part owner of an infamous Bangkok brothel, all potential distractions in his pursuit of truth and justice.

If I may leave you with one closing thought, it is this: it is in some ways as difficult to review Bangkok Tattoo for a potential reader as it would be for a returning traveler to describe Asia to someone who had never left the U.S. This remarkable novel truly has to be experienced firsthand to be appreciated.


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