Review: The DROP by Michael Connelly
Let’s get one thing clear right from the start. I’m a big fan of Michael Connelly. I would read just about anything he wrote. Recently, while on one of my regular drives from Alberta into Montana, I listened to Chasing the Dime (2002) and came away believing it was impossible for Connelly to write a bad character. I consider Connolly to be one of the best mystery writers alive today.
All of that said, The Drop (Little, Brown and Co, 2011) disappointed me. Not a lot, but a little, and for a master the caliber of Connelly, that’s enough.
The Drop is the most recent book in the Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch series, one of several protagonists that Connelly deftly weaves murder mysteries around. In this the 18th book in the Bosch series (Connelly has published 31 books as of 2011) Bosch is working the Open-Unsolved desk for the Los Angeles Police Department. He gets a cold hit on a DNA sample that links a long unsolved sexual assault and murder to a man who was only 8 when the crime was committed. Something is askew, but Bosch tracks the man down and learns that he is a serial child rapist out on parole with a deeply troubling past. At the same time, Bosch’s nemesis (who was deputy commissioner on the LAPD for many years, and tried to deep-fry Bosch’s career on more than one occasion) Councillor Irvin Irving’s son is found dead, supposedly the result of the sudden stop after he jumped from the top floor of a ritzy LA hotel. To everyone’s surprise, Bosch is asked by Irving himself to investigate. Did the man fall, or was he dropped?
Both investigations proceed on parallel tracks, and the investigative technique, personal drama and petty politics of the police force are, as usual, superb reading.
Where The Drop disappoints is that the two investigations never converge except in the form of some talk about “high jingo” between the LAPD and Councillor Irving. And while both stories are told masterfully, I was a little disappointed that they never hooked up in the end. It was like watching two friends flirt all night in the bar, and then shake hands and head for separate cabs. I felt as if Connolly had two short novels he wanted to write, or maybe a pair of longish novellas, and someone talked him into writing them together, in the same book.
In the end, everything except for the final few pages was classic Connolly: tight dialog, fantastic character development, perfect pacing and in this case two really well plotted mysteries. I just wished I had skipped the last chapter. Then I wouldn’t have had any lingering disappointment.
Harry Bosch isn’t getting any younger. The double-entendre of the title is that Bosch has just a few years left before he is forced to retire; he’ll get the drop. While Connolly has other terrific characters (I’m partial to Jack McEvoy in The Poet and The Scarecrow) I expect there will be a few more novels featuring Bosch. I hope so. I’m looking forward to watching him solve a few more mysteries, one at a time.
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