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 or don’t care. Partly out of guilt, McCaleb begins investigating. Since he no longer has a badge it’s difficult for him to get information, but he’s resourceful and effective.

REVIEWER’S OPINION:
This definitely is not a formulaic slowly uncovering the clues kind of story. Yes it is a police procedural and we do slowly uncover clues, but it is fascinating and entertaining during the process. The only reason I didn’t give it 5 stars was because it was almost too good in the following ways. (1) Toward the end, it kept me awake one night. I couldn’t stop thinking about it – too much anxiety and fear. (2) For a while, Terry is being framed. That plot device is not a favorite of mine. It’s such a helpless victim feel when a killer plants evidence and then calls the police. I’m fine with good guys being in danger, but doing it that way is more frustrating than entertaining.

One thing odd was that the characters didn’t use cell phones the way we do today. The cops used pagers. McCaleb used pay phones a lot. This was ok, it was just something I noticed.

THE MOVIE:
Clint Eastwood played McCaleb in the 2002 movie of this book.

NARRATOR:
Dick Hill was very good.

SERIES:
The author has four series. The characters sometimes overlap and refer to each other. So far each book I’ve read could be read as a stand-alone, but I like doing them in chronological order. The chronological order is as follows.

Harry Bosch books 1 through 5 (Harry is LA homicide detective)
McCaleb book 1 (this book – he is former FBI)
Bosch book 6 – Angels Flight
Bosch book 7 and McCaleb book 2 – A Darkness More Than Night (They’re working on the same killer.)

DATA:
Unabridged audiobook length: 12 hrs and 41 mins. Narrator: Dick Hill. Swearing language: strong but not frequently used. Sexual language: none. Number of sex scenes: two, told not shown. Setting: 1995 or earlier mostly Los Angeles, California, plus Mexico. Book Copyright: 1998. Genre: crime mystery thriller. Ending: Satisfying. The good guys win.