By Denise Baton
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“The Hollywood personality Connelly has outlined allows for an accurate
portrayal of the problems an investigator faces when dealing with
the celebrity factor,” said DePasquale. “Connelly moves you through
the story and never lets up until the climax, then he lets you down
easy.”
A DARKNESS MORE THAN NIGHT is Michael Connelly at his best. Besides
the usual high stakes crime story, an investigative visit to the Getty
Museum provides insight into the psyche and character of Harry Bosch
with a magnifying glass. The center panel of a painting, The Last
Judgement, also suggests clues to the murder. Serious questions arise
about Hieronymous Bosch and whether or not he should be on the streets,
much less with a badge. But then, that’s always the question with
Harry, crime fiction’s favorite bad good guy. What makes it exceptional
in this case is that the close inspection comes at a time when Harry
is in the spotlight during a trial that has the potential to put away
a famous movie personality for a sex-related murder. A pattern is
established and to complicate matters, a witness, an actress crucial
to the case, has vanished. The success of the prosecution depends
heavily on Harry. It would not do to have him locked up in cell unable
to track down the wit, or to show up in court in shackles and jailcothes.
Another provocative slant is that Terry McCaleb, Connelly’s retired
FBI investigator, is enticed from paradise, his home on Catalina Island,
back into the crime and grime of Los Angeles. You might wonder how
Terry could ever leave the arms of his gorgeous wife or how he can
abandon his just-born baby girl to ponder a tortured dead body. But
once he begins his profiling you know he won’t let go of the case
until he has resolved it because that’s the kind of man Terry McCaleb
is. What’s startling is that the courtroom dramatics featuring Harry
Bosch and the tale of Hollywood scum spins into McCaleb’s case and
culminates into the realization that there is a support system of
calculated evil. Where, exactly, Harry Bosch fits into the story becomes
a question that McCaleb must answer in spite of their friendship and
shared history.
It’s a clash of the titans and it’s hard to choose sides. The end
of this crime drama is fulfilling and loaded with meaning for both
Harry Bosch and Terry McCaleb, two of murder mystery’s most finely
drawn characters.
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I spoke briefly with Mike DePasquale, L.A.’s Pacific Division homicide
coordinator, with shared enthusiasm for Michael Connelly’s recent crime
novel, A DARKNESS MORE THAN NIGHT. DePasquale feels that Michael Connelly’s
latest is his most realistic ever.