Monday, December 29, 2014

Review, THE BURNING ROOM, Michael Connelly

I have often said that of the Big “C”s of crime-mystery-adventure fiction, [Crais, Coburn, Child, Cornwall, et al] Michael Connelly is the best, or my favorite, or both. THE BURNING ROOM [Little, Brown, 2014] does not really change my mind. It is, however, a little disappointing.

It is the most recent in the series featuring Los Angeles detective Harry Bosch. [A TV series called just “Bosch” is in the works.] Connelly, a former crime reporter, also writes the Lincoln Lawyer series, featuring Mickey Hatcher, Bosch’s half-brother.

The Bosch novels have always been at least partially police procedurals, but this one is almost exclusively so. That’s the reason for my disappointment. In TV terms, it’s a documentary instead of a drama. I like to read about the ways crime is solved, and, being a former trench warrior in my profession, often hampered by witless administrators, I enjoy seeing police administrators made to look foolish as they try to control their rogue cops only to have the guys and gals in the trenches proven correct. Still, I’d like a little more action that does not sound like it’s just more procedure.

Certainly it has some action, and some drama, but I just don’t think it is as interesting as the earlier Bosch novels.

Having said all that, I shall be glad to read the next Bosch, or Hatcher, knowing it will be well written good story.

Maybe I should choose Child as my new favorite, though. No, Jack Reacher is running out of steam. The last Reacher novel, PERSONAL, was even more of a documentary than THE BURING ROOM. So maybe Crais? No, Elvis Cole and Abe Glitzky are getting predictable, too. I’ll stick with Connelly as my favorite of the Cs. But there are the As, like Kate Atkinson…

John Robert McFarland

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2015.

My novel, VETS, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

In case you missed it, a Tweet Repeat: You can make your own decisions, but you can’t choose your own consequences.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write, once in a great while, Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

MY OTHER BOOKS:

NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them [AndrewsMcMeel & HarperAudio, with Czech and Japanese translations] Paul K. Hamilton, MD, the co-founder of CanSurmount, called it “The best book for cancer patients, by a cancer patient, ever.”

AN ORDINARY MAN [HarperPaperbacks] Randall MacLane just wanted to be an ordinary man. But sent with a message for Custer, he became a drifting lawman with a knack for killing, and a deep well of loneliness. Then a twist of fate brought him full circle…

THE STRANGE CALLING: Stories of Ministry [Smyth&Helwys] I didn’t want to be a preacher, but I made a deal with God to save my sister’s life. Was that really a “call,” though? I said, “I’ll try t for 50 years, and if I still don’t know, I’ll do something else.” These are stories of what happened in those years of questioning the call.

WHEN FATHER RODE THE MAIL and Other Stories of Christmas [lulu.com] ISBN 978-1-300-38566-0

If you like baseball poetry, take a look at “Frosty & the Babe” http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/frosty_and_the_babe.shtml