Blood Work

Blood Work (Terry McCaleb #1)

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4.05 of 5 stars 4.05  ·  rating details  ·  16,869 ratings  ·  462 reviews
New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly presents his most ambitious, most gripping achievement to date--a novel of masterly suspense and righteous obsession that will never let you go.
When Graciella Rivers steps onto his boat, ex-FBI agent Terrell McCaleb has no idea he's about to come out of retirement. He's recuperating from a heart transplant and avoiding any
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Paperback, 480 pages
Published July 1st 2002 by Grand Central Publishing (first published 1997)

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Community Reviews

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Vicki
Terry McCaleb, an ex-FBI agent, is recovering from life-saving heart replacement surgery when he takes on a pretty unlikely job. The sister of the woman whose heart now is keeping Terry alive wants him to help find the killer of her sister and the convenience store operator who was killed at the same time.

At first reluctant to take on the task, he is drawn in by Graciela's charm and persistence, and by the cuteness of Raymond, Graciela's nephew and the son of the deceased woman. When McCaleb sta...more
Dodol Surodol
It's actually 4.5 stars; it's that good.

Probably the and definitely among the best crime novels I have ever read. I sort of followed Harry Bosch stories until I ran out of them and decided to check out this non-Bosch title.

Terry McCaleb is the main character, an ex-FBI agent with a career made in solving serial killer cases. [Only after I finished the book did I realize I had come across McCaleb not once, but twice, in two of Bosch' cases.] I like how he left the Bureau because of his heart fail...more
Tom
I love the premise of "Blood Work": FBI agent Terry McCaleb had to leave the agency, not because he cooked a fall, shot somebody, or angered a superior. Simply, he was dying.

One night, his transplant pager goes off, alerting him that a donor heart had become available. He had his transplant, and was taking it easy on his boat. Until one day, a lovely young woman named Graciela shows up on his boat, begging him to look into her sister's murder. McCaleb protests that he's retired. Then, the young...more
Tom
Best Connelly book ever! I could not stop listening to this book. Terrel MacCaleb is a retired FBI profiler who recently had a heart transplant. He gets a visitor at his boat, a woman who tells him his heart came from a murder victim. She wants him to find the killer since the police have hit a wall. He can't keep himself from feeling guilty and inserts himself in tot he investigation. Little does he know how connected he has been to the case all along.

The characters in this story are some of th...more
Jane Stewart
4 ½ stars. Wow. This was good. A lot of things I didn’t expect. I didn’t want to stop reading.

STORY BRIEF:
McCaleb is 46 years old, retired from the FBI, and lives on a fishing boat in a Los Angeles Harbor. Two months earlier Gloria was killed in a convenience store hold up. Her organs went to several people. McCaleb got her heart. Gloria’s sister Graciela, a nurse, figures this out and asks McCaleb to help find the shooter. The police have stopped working on the case and are either incompetent o...more
Adriana
I never paid any mind to this guy's books on the best seller list. Especially when I learned that they made The Lincoln Lawyer into a movie. I guess I have forever been turned off since the early '90's when John Grisham was better than the invention of the internet.

But I am a big fan of the ABC show Castle, which is based on the collaboration of a NY homicide detective and a famous mystery writer. And Mr. Connelly has made guest appearances as a poker buddy of Castle. So has James Patterson and...more
Christine
I have been enjoying the Mickey Haller series, and decided to see what Mr. Connelly’s other books were like. In this book he introduces a new character in Terry McCaleb, an FBI agent forced into retirement due to a heart ailment. Terry is trying to live the quiet life to let his body adjust to the new heart he received in a transplant. That all changes when Graciela Rivers tracks him down and asks him to investigate her sister’s “accidental” death. McCaleb refuses, until he learns its her sister...more
Tony Gleeson
By now I've come to expect that Michael Connelly is going to take me into improbable territory, with character decisions and plot twists designed to test my fealty, and crimes and criminals designed to be grotesquely repellant. Luckily he's easily a good enough writer and compelling enough storyteller to keep my allegiance, and he brings sufficient realism to the overall tale to convince me to suspend my disbelief in the particularly outrageous . This time he introduces Terry McCaleb, a former F...more
Dan Cooper
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Tony
After his heart began crashing Terrell McCaleb had to retire from his position at the FBI. He has been waiting and hoping for a match to his rare blood type so that he can receive his new heart, and just when he has given up hope one comes in for him. Now suddenly Graciela Rivers approaches him with a plea for help in solving his sister’s murder. Set on refusing and enjoying some time on his boat, he is shocked to find out that the murder victim was the woman whose heart he now has. A desire to...more
Sarah Batchelder
This is the first book I've read by Michael Connelly. I really liked it and plan to read more of his work. I have the first Harry Bosch book - The Black Echo - sitting on my to- read shelf, but there are some other things I'm going to get to first.

I got to hear Michael Connelly speak at ALA in Chicago this year - I went to as many author related events that I could. I hadn't even heard of him prior to this, but I was really impressed with what he had to say about libraries and writing. And there...more
Linda J
This was my first non-Harry Bosch Michael Connelly novel. It was a very good listen and I found lots of excuses to keep the iPod going while I burned through it. Connelly is very good at letting you think the mystery is solved then comes up with a last-minute twist and off you go to a rousing unexpected ending. This book was no different. I missed the mid-book clues that pointed to the real bad guy but that's not unusual for me - I don't put alot of effort into trying to solve the case ahead of...more
Kathrina
This title was included in last year's World Book Night -- thousands of copies of reader favorites were published and distributed at no cost to encourage literacy. A stack of this one ended up at our public library (not enough takers?) and then donated to our prison book group. Connelly's written a lot of books, and since this was the only one of his on Book Night's list, I figured it must be representative of his best.
I'm not entirely disappointed. The plot is thick with detail, and the first...more
Jo-Anne
I have always liked Michael Connelly's books so I wanted to read this one about Terry McCaleb. I was not disappointed.

Terry McCaleb is quite likeable. He is very, very good at his job, seeing things at crime scenes that others miss, but also he is a considerate person.

In Blood Work McCaleb was forced into early retirement because of a heart problem. Before retiring, he was a top FBI agent. He gets a heart transplant and lives quietly, nursing his new heart and restoring the boat which he lives o...more
Deana M
Excellent book! Terry McCaleb is retired FBI. He was the owner of a bad heart which caused him to retire early from his job with the bureau. Because he had a very rare blood type, he had to wait 2 years for a transplant. Approximately 9 months after the surgery, a woman confronts him on his boat which is called THE FOLLOWING SEA. The woman knows he is retired FBI, who worked on serial killer cases out of their LA office, and wants him to investigate the murder of her sister. Terry says no way; h...more
Vicki
Apr 04, 2012 Vicki rated it 3 of 5 stars
Shelves: crime
This isn't the greatest book ever written, but it was enjoyable, and the premise was interesting. The main character, Terry McCaleb, is a former FBI agent who has just had a heart transplant. He is no longer with the bureau, and has no desire to continue working as a detective. Things change one morning when an attractive woman boards his boat and tells him that the heart beating inside his chest belonged to her sister, who was murdered. McCaleb feels a sense of responsibility to both the murder...more
Mike
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Karen Gooderham
This is the first book I have read by Michael Connelly (I had not heard of him until I went to the dentist and sat in the waiting room reading and my dentist told me to try him) and I am so glad I did, I loved this book.

Blood Work features Terry Mccaleb who is a retired FBI agent (he has recently had a heart transplant). One day a women (Graciela) turns up on his boat where he lives asking for his help. Her sister was murdered and her killer was never found. He says no first of all and asks her...more
Speesh
The first thing I thought about this one, was that there's more than a hint of The Rockford Files about it. Terry McCaleb used to be in the FBI, but now lives on a boat he's slowly repairing, has had a heart transplant and has a slightly quirky mate living on a boat further along the marina. There isn't a quirky father popping round, but his father is still a presence in his life.

The premis of the book is, that McCaleb has recently had a heart transplant. The donor, it seems was murdered and McC...more
Eden
Wow - thanks to my son for checking this book out from the library and recommending it to me. I started another series of Connelly's (beginning with The Lincoln Lawyer) and enjoyed his writing style very much, but this one was even more of a treat. The former FBI hero is forced to rely on his brain rather than his body as he is a recent heart-transplant patient who also possess an tortured soul, a condition which is intensified through the course of the story. I loved the way he built his case,...more
Hazel McHaffie
This is the best book I've read so far in my stack of novels about organ donation. A completely original idea told with skill and verve. Terry McCaleb is an ex-FBI agent who's recently had a heart transplant. He's minding his own business recuperating on his boat when a woman comes to see him asking for his help to find the killer of her sister. He insists he doesn't want to get involved, but she says he has to - his heart came from her sister. Knowing he has benefited from a cold blooded killin...more
Lori
It took me an entire novel too long to figure out that all (or at least the vast majority of Connelly's novels) all take place in the same universe and should really be read in order. I was rather annoyed with "A Darkness More Than Night," because it really isn't a Bosch novel as advertized, and I had no idea who the heck Terry McCaleb was. When I finally figured it out, I had to backtrack to this early novel.

Unfortunately, I had already seen the admittedly not great movie. So there weren't a lo...more
Marleen
Blood Work, book 1 in the Terry McCaleb series, by Michael Connolly (first published in 1998) wasn’t what I expected.
Contrary to the Mickey Haller books, which I adore, I found this one rather average. As a character, I miss something about Terry McCaleb, some kind of edge, some kind of excitement and heartfelt vulnerability. Although those qualities were attributed to Terry right there on the page, they didn't come across as genuine to me. The plot was interesting enough and there were twists...more
Tara
I really liked this book. I enjoyed Terry and I can't wait until the book when all these characters I'm reading about seem to come together to solve a crime. I also liked that Connelly went back and tied up what most writers would have left as a forgotten thread. It's all well done.

Terry McCaleb is a retired FBI agent with a new heart. He ends up involved in an investigation trying to solve the crime of the woman who was his heart donor. The thing I love is the fact that I NEVER guess right who...more
Kathryn Moore
This book was way too long for the story. 496 pages was too much. The plot of the story was really good. If the author could have just stuck to the story and not gotten so side-tracked would have made it more enjoyable for me to read.
Mark
Ex-FBI agent gets a heart transplant, only it turns out to be from a woman who was murdered and he feels obligated to find her killer. The plot twists right at the very end are common for this kind of story (and in Connelly’s other books), but the twists before then were very good and had me guessing. The book is far better than the Clint Eastwood movie, to which it bares little resemblance. If there’s a problem with the book, it’s that the main character is generic. He’s basically Harry Bosch f...more
Joe White
This is a genuine mystery plot novel with suspense built on investigative clues. Most of the characters are realistic with some depth contributed through interaction, although the time frame is too short for any character development in any but the main character. The bad guy is overly perfect in being able to lead a consistent mystery trail, while building a facade and evading his true disclosure. However, this raises the bar for perceptions, intuitions, and clue discernment by the leading char...more
Aaron
Alas, the streak of fantastic was bound to end one day.

This book, while still better than even the best books by similar authors, left a lot to be desired.

My issue wasn't the characters. My issue wasn't the plot. Both are incredibly engaging...My issue is with the ending. The actual-- you know-- reveal of the killer's motivations. Seems implausible that one person could go through so much and orchestrate so perfectly something that he (or she- no spoilers here) could never guarantee would ever...more
Heather Pearson
Just two month post transplant and Terry McCaleb is recovering on his boat which is moored in the Los Angeles Harbor. Retired from his job with the FBI, Terry is under doctor's orders to do nothing other than rest and recover. He finds this a reasonable task until the day a women comes to his boat pleading that he investigate the murder of her only sister. When presented with the intimate details, Terry finds it hard to resist.

This is one of those stories that grabs onto the reader early on, and...more
Rose Mary
Michael Connelly has a talent for fleshing out his characters so the reader feels a relationship. In this book, Terrell McCaleb, an ex-FBI agent, who has recently had a heart transplant is challenged by the sister of the donor to find her sister's murderer. McCaleb, despite the danger to his transplant recovery feels compelled to help her since he feels he got a new lease on life because of an evil act. He soon becomes involved with several police agencies including the FBI. The challenge become...more
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Michael Connelly decided to become a writer after discovering the books of Raymond Chandler while attending the University of Florida. Once he decided on this direction he chose a major in journalism and a minor in creative writing — a curriculum in which one of his teache...more
More about Michael Connelly...
The Lincoln Lawyer (Mickey Haller, #1) The Black Echo (Harry Bosch, #1) The Poet (Jack McEvoy, #1) The Brass Verdict (Harry Bosch, #14; Mickey Haller, #2) The Fifth Witness (Mickey Haller, #4)

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