Rating: 
Summary: Great writing, great reading
Review: I first read Michael Connelly when I read "The Poet" with Terry McCaleb. I became an immediate fan and read all of his Harry Bosch novels and have kept up with that series and the Terry McCaleb series since then as well as Connelly's other books. I have never been disappointed. I thought "A Darkness More Than Night" with both Harry and Terry in it was one of his best."The Narrows" allows Harry and characaters from "The Poet" and the other McCaleb books to meet and work together to finally eliminate the Poet. Harry's efforts to find out who murdered colleague Terry McCaleb is a thrill ride filled with well-drawn characters and detailed policework. Connelly is one of the best mystery writers out there and whether or not you've read any of his previous works, you won't be disappointed with this one. In fact, after reading it, I am now going back to reread "The Poet" and then reread all of Connelly's books. It doesn't matter to me (like it appears to matter to other reviewers) that we now know what happened to the Poet. It does bother me that one reviewer couldn't even get McCaleb's name right (they called him Gerry more than once!). If you want a good, fast-moving, well-written mystery, then spend a few hours with "The Narrows". You'll become a Connelly fan--if you aren't already!
Rating:
Summary: Simply, His Best!!
Review: I have liked most of Michael Connelly's novels, but until this one, I always thought The Poet was his best. With this one, building upon that novel, Connelly has out done himself. Harry Bosch has agreed to look into the death of a good friend at the request of the widow. Everyone thinks it was a heart attack. Through careful sleuthing, Bosch comes up with a scenario which suggests murder, but no obvious reason or suspect. In the meantime FBI agent Rachel Walling, last seen in The Poet, has been drawn back into another search for the serial killer, whom all thought dead. The Poet was her mentor as an FBI agent and he clearly has plans for more killing. As the story moves between Walling and Bosch the lines of the story intersect and Bosch and Walling, while dealing with FBI higher ups that make your teeth hurt, follow the clues and find the truth. If you only buy one harcover book this summer, buy this one. It is flat, dead great.
Rating:
Summary: Reading this book by Connelly was like going home...
Review: everything was so familiar..the characters..the settings..the cases and crimes and of course Hieronymous Bosch, former detective in the LAPD. This author-driven novel of mystery and suspense is the best of the best. I would not have believed that Connelly could bring together so many of his characters and cases and blend them as smoothly as chocolate pudding. He certainly makes the reading tasty and leaves the reader hungry for more. Meeting Backus again, the villain from his best-seller THE POET, was thrilling and chilling as Bosch and Rachel Walling, exiled FBI agent, track down this cunning thought-dead serial killer. Backus has re-surfaced, his newest victim a close friend of Bosch who worked with him on many cases. Connelly has Bosch circling from the left and Rachel Walling circling from the right...both on a collision course that meets at a burial site in the Nevada desert and ends in the Narrows of the Los Angeles River. A comfortable lounger, a rainy day and Michael Connelly's THE NARROWS will lead you down a path of unbridled suspense and mystery, however you might want to read it in bright sunlight surrounded by friends and family if you are feint of heart. Now that Bosch is back, we hope that Michael will sate our hunger for him in another novel...very soon. I must add that Connelly's adherence to police and FBI protocol is amazing in that it is ever-present and precise yet so well incorporated as to not overwhelm the reader. Thank you for another great one Michael. I hesitate to say this is your best because you keep making them better and better...this is the best so far and I eagerly await the next.
Rating: 
Summary: my first Bosch book
Review: This was my first book by the author and for me it was a good read. I'd recommend this to anyone who likes good page-turning suspense. I wasn't aware this was the latest of a series, but that didn't bother me. Some of the plot development towards the end didn't garner four star ratings, but the writer is so good at what he does I could see myself re-reading this book in the future. I'd put this on the same level as James Patterson "1st To Die" Very Good!
Rating: 
Summary: truly awful
Review: I'm about 1/2 way through this awful piece of junk. I must have read "The Poet" to which this is sequel but I cannot remember. In fairness, I am also rereading "Gorky Park" and the contrast, at every level, is cruel to Mr. Connelly.
Some points: All characters are passive-aggressives, those where there is any development are also depressed, no wonder.
What is it with the weird names he gives female characters?
Clearly Mr. Connelly has to write X pages to fulfill his contract so we get Harry Bosch's thoughts on everything, no matter how irrelevant, and boy, are they are irrelevant! In fact, a hidden message in the book may by that Harry Bosch is a total idiot (wink, wink). He keeps complaining that the professionals are blowing him off (he's retired and bugging other people) and you can see why people hang up on him. He goes on about his car, his hotel room, his daughter,..... Mr. Connelly also spends a lot of time in repitition, describing scenes, arriving at the obvious after mucho circular speculation, etc. but that may be just to show how stupid Harry is.
The other main characters are "Rachel" who apparantly spent the last 10 years on an Indian reservation as punishment for something she did in the previous Poet novel. There is the Poet himself, a shadowy character who is fixing to kill them all gruesomely, I was going to say for reasons unknown but after 1/2 a book's exposure to Rachel, Harry, etc. I am cheering for Mr Poet and fully understand why he would want to cleanse the universe of such idiots.
As I leave them Harry and Rachel are bouncing around Las Vegas being followed by a squad of FBI'ers and the Poet. I expect that Rachel is going to get it because such depressed foreshadowing has to lead to something bad and Mr. Connelly can't kill off his mealticket. Harry has a daughter in Vegas and really gruesome things are possible in that direction including 20-30 pages of Harry's thoughts on father-daughter relationships.
Re Amazon's "Fine Print"; this product is not likely to cause injury or death but it may feel like it.
John Glynn
Rating:
Summary: awesome read!
Review: awesome read. read it in one day. Harry Bosch at
his best.
Rating:
Summary: Great sequel to the Poet.
Review: Michael Connelly's sequel to his hit "The Poet" is a worthy follow up that has a great lead character in Harry Bosch, Connelly's most interesting series character. The action is tease and the story is crisps and it's a worthy chapter in the Harry Bosch series. I rank it right up next to Angles Flight as one of the best in the series.
Rating:
Summary: A Very Worthy Sequel to "The Poet"
Review: Michael Connelly has devoted most of his writing career to solid crime procedurals starring LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch. Almost a decade ago, he took a detour to write "The Poet", a novel depicting FBI agent Rachel Walling's nationwide pursuit of a serial killer who exacts revenge on cops and then disguises the crimes as suicides. It was a work every bit as intriguing as Thomas Harris at his best, and its ending left the door wide open for a sequel. In "The Narrows", Connelly brings both protagonists together to solve the untimely death of yet another name from the past, retired FBI agent Terry McCaleb of "Blood Work".
Crossover stories by any author put me on alert as I'm afraid that I'm about to be served a comic book gimmick (what if Superman and Batman worked together?). Connelly had already somewhat faltered when introducing Bosch and McCaleb in "A Darkness More than Night". However, "The Narrows" corrects that earlier book's mistakes and provides a thrilling conclusion to the Poet's tale.
The action is immediately underway and well-paced as always. Connelly does his usual great job of starting with events that initially seem unconnected and then credibly meshing them through the detective work of his characters. The suspense builds from The Poet's very creepy efforts to place himself back in the FBI's sights through his engame of revenge on his pursuers. The resulting game of cat-and-mouse and its climax(es) are true page-turners.
I'm still not convinced that I like Bosch's side being told in first-person (a convention that began with his last Bosch novel, "Lost Light") because it detracts from Connelly's gifts with wording. As you'd expect, Bosch's thoughts and feelings are very economical, which leads to sparse prose. Scenes from other characters' perspectives flow very nicely in third-person voice.
The pairing of Bosch and Walling is more natural than that of Bosch and McCaleb was in "A Darkness More than Night". This success is partly due to their natural similarities. For example, Walling now finds herself a pariah within the FBI despite her excellent skills, very similar to Bosch's situation throughout most of his tenure at LAPD. During the course of the investigation, they achieve some trust and intimacy, but not so much that the characterization of either is compromised. This delicate balance that Connelly maintains here is what puts this crossover way ahead of his earlier attempt.
But the real trick that Connelly pulls off in this one is the mystery itself. You can't call the book a whodunit because you immediately know that the Poet is back - he advertises it himself. So why read the book? Read it for the true question that's skillfully saved for the ending surprise: not so much whodunit but what-did-he-really-do?
Without revealing any spoilers, the ending provides not only a powerful surprise but also further development in Bosch's life that career fans have surely been itching for. The result is very satisfying for "The Narrows" on its own and also opens up great possibilities for Bosch's future tales.
If you discovered "The Poet" as a one-shot and are looking forward to this sequel, I recommend reading at least some of the Harry Bosch series and "Blood Work" first. The absolute minimum chronology would be "The Black Echo", "The Last Coyote", "Trunk Music" and "City of Bones". You can still make sense of this book without a complete background on Bosch; you'll just be cheating yourself out of a lot of great mystery fiction.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best Bosch books yet
Review: Detective Hieronymous (Harry) Bosch and FBI agent Rachel Walling are brought together to investigate the death of former FBI agent Terry McCaleb as well as the possible reemergence of serial killer Bob Backus, aka The Poet. We also get a dose of Bosch's daughter, his ex-wife, Kiz Rider, Buddy Lockridge, and McCaleb's widow. In the world of Michael Connelly characters, this is a family affair.
Given the integration of previously disparate storylines, you might expect this novel to fail, or to succeed only as a gimmick, in the same way that an Abbott and Costello meet the Three Stooges special is destined for mediocrity.
However, I'm happy to say, this book works as a novel, and is one of the most enjoyable in the series to date. To me, Connelly's biggest shortcomings are that he tends to include a plot twist too many and that his walk-through of investigatory procedurals can become so convoluted that the forward motion of the plot becomes mired in details. Neither of those shortcomings is evident here.
One of the remarkable things about the Bosch character is that, in every novel, we see another layer of his humanity. There are so many dimensions to what makes him tick that he really seems like a living, breathing person. And yet, he's a person unlike any that we've ever known; driven, relentlessly drawn to the act of chasing criminals like a shark pursuing prey. And like a shark, Bosch never stops moving; if he did, he might die.
In this novel, Bosch's pursuit of justice is intermixed with visits to his daughter Maddie, and with his temptation to rejoin the LAPD. His investigations lead him to a mass grave and to a Nevada brothel, among other places. He finds himself in conflict with the FBI, which is more concerned with the FBI's image than with a speedy, relentless pursuit of the victim.
About half of the novel is told in Bosch's words, and half in a third-person narrative focused on Rachel Walling. There are also occasional bits of story that center around the villain. Despite these bits, and some pondering by Bosch, we never really get a feel for the villain as a character; he's just the daily special on Bosch's plate. I didn't feel strongly about the divergent narrative one way or the other; I will say that Bosch's character voice isn't much different from Connelly's writing style.
The writing is very well done, and the novel is well-paced. We get to see the agents engage in some interesting field work, and Bosch's attention to detail is fun to see. Yet, the story is more sparse than most of Connelly's work, with a more direct path from point A to point B. I think it works very well. Moreso than in any other Bosch book, I liked the ending. Endings are hard; Connelly got it right this time.
I highly recommend this book, although I wouldn't choose it as my first Connelly novel. You should read a couple other books so that you can appreciate the secondary characters based on their histories in past novels.
Rating:
Summary: The sad state of publishing business
Review: How bad can a so-called thriller get? If it gets any worse than this I am sure it can cause dementia. There was something faintly interesting in the mediocre Poet but Narrows... There is nothing you could call a decent plot, no interesting characters, no good writing. Oh my what tricks this guy uses in the end! I appeal for a law to ban less than half-baked serial killer "thrillers".
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