Rainer Maria Rilke

"Live a while in these books, learn from them what seems to you worth learning, but above all love them. This love will be repaid you a thousand and a thousand times, and however your life may turn,-it will, I am certain of it, run through the fabric of your growth as one of the most important threads among all the threads of your experiences, disappointments, and joys."--Rainer Maia Rilke


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Saturday, January 18, 2014

As Dark as a Tunnel

The Black Echo:  Harry Bosch #1 by Michael Connelly

Detective/Mystery

Harry is a vice cop called in on a murder --a dead body in a drain tunnel.  He knows it won't be an ordinary case--because he knows who the victim is!  The dead man is a blast from Bosch's Vietnam past, and not a happy one.  Bosch and the victim were tunnel rats in 'Nam, bomb diffusers who crawled through the tunnels to find and destroy bombs before they exploded.  Harry knows it can't be a coincidence he found the body, but what does it mean?  How does it fit together?  The incident brings back bad memories for Bosch.

I didn't love it, but I liked it enough to keep going.  It felt very noir and dark to me, not usually the type of book that I like.  It had a very 'Vietnam' feel to it, if that makes any sense.  It was procedural and gritty and realistic.  I felt like Bosch was an actual vice cop relating a case to me.  The romance with a fellow worker eased the tension and bleakness of the book a little.  It made Harry seem more like a normal person.  It was extremely detailed and it kept my attention.  There are a lot of twists and turns in the plot.  It's a book you can't second guess, like one of those roller coasters that twist and turn.  I do like the character of Harry--he is a rebel and he thumbs his nose at the establishment, a man after my own heart.

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