City of Bones, by Michael Connelly, is another of Harry Bosch’s novels. Bosch is a detective with the Hollywood branch of the Los Angeles Police Department. He has a tendency to confront his superiors and ignore procedures, but it usually works because his detective instincts are very good and his self-preservation instincts are good enough. And of course, because his superiors, being within the LAPD, are often corrupt.
The story begins with the discovery of a human bone, brought by a dog to its owner during a walk. The resulting search leads to the body of a child that had been buried for over 20 years. Upon examination, they discover that the boy had been brutally beaten for many years before he was finally killed. The story is primarily the story of Bosch’s investigation into the murder and the eventual location of the killer.
“City of Bones” is the description of the grid archaeologists in the story impose on a dig as they methodically and painstakingly unearth and reconstruct the bones they have discovered. Los Angeles, located near or above the La Brea Tar Pits, is also known as the City of Bones because the tar pits lured many animals to their deaths only to shed their bones several thousand years later. Scientists have also discovered the skeleton of an early human that appears to have been killed and deposited in the tar pits as early as 9,000 years ago. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
What I love about Connolly’s writing, aside from his colorful language, excellent ear for idiomatic expressions, and sophisticated literary knowledge, is the tension of the plot and his ability to weave subplots without losing momentum or urgency. When Bosch is on a case, he works long hours late into the night, and it was just as hard for me to put the book down. In this case there are two stories that unfold during the investigation, the story of the murdered child’s life and family, and a love story between Bosch and another police officer (Julia Brasher). Both stories are deeply disturbing in their own way. Discovering the life of the murdered boy is possibly more important to the story as a whole, and certainly more disturbing, than discovering the cause of his death.
I found the love story unsatisfying in the final analysis. Brasher was too strong and too cool to meet the end that he apparently did. What happened is definitely not clear in the final analysis, but if Bosch’s interpretation is correct (and let’s face it, his conclusions are rarely wrong), Brasher was the victim of a kind of accidental suicide. I mean, she intentionally shot herself and inflicted the wound, but it killed her by some kind of fluke. That kind of suicide would make an interesting counterpoint or comparison to the “change of mind” suicide that is the opening scene of the novel, but I found the underlying psychology unconvincing. He hadn’t watched the virulent “us versus them” mentality develop in her that Bosch said he saw, which would have been necessary to support her willingness to murder a suspect as he apparently planned to do. Once again, she seemed too cold, too sophisticated, and too emotionally flexible for such a rigid and ruthless mindset to have developed in such a short time. Overall, Brasher’s character left me with more questions than answers.
With the possible exception of the way Julia Brasher was handled, Michael Connolly’s understanding of the psychology of all the characters in the story is adept. Most of the characters are not deeply explored, they mostly exist only to play the roles they play in the story, and yet they are interesting and thought provoking. They are realistic enough to carry the plot, and that is enough. Connolly is often compared to Raymond Chandler, and I think the comparison is apt, but the characters aren’t as rigid and you get to know them a little better than Chandler’s characters. Not many people like Bosch, and it’s easy to see why, but Connolly lifts the curtain enough for the reader to also see what makes Bosch admirable and attractive to those who like him.