Rating: 
Summary: An Atypical Effort - I Expected Better
Review: I enjoy this author, especially his Harry Bosch novels. However, this one is clearly a stand alone central character. Henry Pierce, is a genius who is developing a molecular delivery system of some sort which, if succesful will make him a jillionaire and his company make MicroSoft look like a Model T Ford. So, with all of marbles on the line as he gets near to filing his patent and convincing a "whale" (a person with millions to invest) to pony up 30 million or so to enable them to complete their research, Henry gets distracted.We are asked to believe that after breaking up with his girlfriend and moving to a new apartment that the discovery that his new phone number used to be that of a very georgeous escort service model gets him into some sort of x-rated frenzy as he starts to receive her calls. The discovery comes near the end of the week. By Monday he can have the number changed and he won't be getting her calls anymore. But instead of going to the lab to do some much needed work on the invention, he spends the time trying to get in contact with the model whom he has become convinced may be in some danger. To give this some credence, the author creates a piece of past history where Henry's sister suffered a similar fate from such a profession, but this seems to be a thin connection for what Henry goes through. We get a pretty good introduction to the world of the escort service as Henry goes further and further into the maze which we eventually find out was created by others to acquire the invention. It is a deadly maze with a bloody conclusion, but somehow all the suspense and such didn't do a lot for me as I kept saying to myself, "no one this bright would ever be doing this at this time." If you can get past that, as some other reviewers have, then you will probably enjoy the mystery and suspense. For me, I hope the next novel from this author will be about Harry Bosch.
Rating: 
Summary: A Deadly Wrong Number
Review: Henry Pierce is the Bill Gates of molecular computers of the future. As Chasing the Dime begins, Henry is about to apply for the patents on his research that will reshape the computing and the medical industries. He and his partner are gearing up for a presentation to a potential investor, a "whale," who can provide millions of dollars over the next few years to fund development of Proteus, their new delivery system. Henry's personal life is about to change for the worse, however, as his long term relationship with Nicole has just broken up and he has moved into a new apartment to begin living alone. The story looks pretty clear cut until Henry get his first phone message and realizes after a series of them, that he now has the number previously issued to a prostitute named Lily. As men continue to call for Lily, and he realizes that she appears to be missing, he become obsessed with finding her. He only has a short time before his presentation to the investor, but in that time he drops into an Alice in Wonderland type hole where nothing seems to fit. In his search for Lily, he is nearly killed by a couple of thugs, suspected of murder, and about to see his plans for his company destroyed. Although Henry is an unlikely detective, he is a scientist who can apply his reasoning skills to help him survive as his life appears to be unraveling. He is being set up, but by whom and why is what he has to find out. The plot is fascinating, well developed and suspenseful. Chasing The Dime doesn't have Harry Bosch at work, but it's Connelly at his best with great writing and a fun read to the end.
Rating: 
Summary: Far-fetched and Boring
Review: I have read all of Michael Connelly's books and have found all of them to be compelling page-turners that I couldn't put down. Until now. I found "Chasing the Dime" to be both boring and far-fetched. Readers are expected to believe that Henry Pierce, a high-tech hotshot who is such a workaholic that his girlfriend has dumped him, will suddenly neglect his business and risk his reputation, his freedom, and ultimately his life hunting for a missing call girl whom he has never even met. Readers are further asked to believe that this irrational behavior was a predictable result of Pierce's unresolved guilt over his inability to save his sister from murder years earlier. Perhaps if Connelly had more fully developed his characters, this might have been believable. However, given the one-dimensional charaters Connelly has drawn, this behavior seems wildly improbable and certainly not predictable. As Pierce hunts for the missing Lilly, he becomes the prime suspect. Why? Because he's stupid. It's bad enough that readers are expected to believe that Pierce would set off on this search, but we are also supposed to believe that Pierce, already alert to the likelihood of foul play, would break into the missing girl's home and leave his fingerprints all over the place. The guy works in a lab. Hasn't he ever heard of gloves? If you want to read a good Michael Connelly book, give this one a miss and pick up A Darkness More Than Night. Or any of his other books.
Rating:
Summary: For A Smart Guy, Hank Is Pretty Stupid
Review: I thought using a character related to a character from a previous novel was a nice touch, but otherwise this book is too implausible and/or downright silly. Seems like Mr Connelly took a page (a bad page) from James Patterson and just churned one out here. Maybe he has not recovered from the loss of Harry Bosch.
Rating:
Summary: insultingly stupid plot
Review: Henry is supposedly a brilliant scientist on the brink of a major professional triumph. We're supposed to believe he's so unhinged by his girlfriend's dumping him, that when he sees a prostitute's photo on a website, he gets obsessed with her fate, morphs into an amateur detective, cleverly obtains private info about her from people who don't want to give it, breaks into her house, reads her mail, talks with her mother on the phone.....it isn't believable for an instant. And if the guy really did behave this way, he's an idiot, and who cares what happens to him. Skip this one, Connelly's worst book by far.
Rating:
Summary: Curiosity Could Kill the Lab Rat
Review: If the hero of "Chasing the Dime" were just another tough-talking PI, I'd be here complaining about the novel's clichéd plot. So what does best-selling crime writer Connelly do? He lets a world of intrigue, murder, and smut-peddling crash on the head of a lab rat who has no business snooping around alleyways or trading blows with thugs. .... You'll have to ignore your initial response (which will no doubt be of the "Why is this ...person doing this?" variety) and let Connelly warm up. With cleverly established motivations and riveting attention to detail, "Chasing the Dime" rewards your unhealthy curiosity very well by book's end.
Rating:
Summary: Connelly is my favorite author but this is a weak effort!
Review: I have read all of his work now and this is my least favorite. It is as if he lost pages 300-450 from his 600 page manuscript. The main character Pierce never is in real jeopardy of losing his life or losing his patented design for a molecular computer gadget thingie. Connelly does NOT develop any of the characters in this book, not Pierce, the helpful hooker, Pierce's defense atty, his hacker friend, his partner, or his head of security. If he did, he could have added much, much more dramatic tension figuring out who dun it. Instead when the end comes and the villian lifts off their mask, all you can think about was these points and how the author never really developed the possible villians or gave the reader a shot to figure it all out. A very hurried ending, he phoned this one in ala Stuart Woods.
Rating:
Summary: improbable and boring
Review: I like Michael Connelly's other books. This one is very bad. The plot is ridiculous, the characters are one dimensional, and the writing is painful. It is full of filler detail that seems to be there to get the word count up. I gave it one star because there was no way to give it none.
Rating:
Summary: Terrible disappointment
Review: I usually love Michael Connelly and was thrilled to see he had another book out. ... It was boring, the characters were [bad], and I didn't care enough to get through 50 pages. I tried skipping ahead but it never got any better. ...
Rating:
Summary: Probably today's best mystery writer. I enjoyed it greatly.
Review: I imagine the author likes to take a break from Harry Bosch. Harry has a history and is a dark and complex character. Henry Pierce is a new character but I imagine he'll be in another book. What's nice about this book is that it's not from the police point of view. The main character is the victim/suspect. Until this book I didn't notice the Stoicism in Connelly's novels. Maybe just now I'm recognizing it because I recently read some Stoics. Or maybe the modern American needs to be a Stoic to live without going insane. I also love the way Connelly makes slight references to his other books/characters in his latest books. I also enjoy the citations to music and other authors. The guy is just a treat. This also would make a great movie. Cast Keifer Sutherland as Henry Pierce.
| 
