The Narrows

Rating:
Summary: One of the best by today's best crime fiction writer
Review: Bosch is back. He is now a PI hired by Graciela, wife of his friend, Terry McCaleb. It seems Terry died of heart failure while on his boat. Graciela is concerned that he might have been murdered. As Bosch looks into it, he discovers that someone tampered with Terry's heart medication. At the same time, it seems a killer has reemerged nicknamed The Poet. FBI agent, Rachel Walling is on his trail. The Poet was formerly her mentor and chief in the FBI. As she follows the trail of bodies to a desert site outside of Las Vegas, Bosch's investigation leads him to the same location. They decide to join forces to capture this very dangerous and worthy adversary before he kills again.
THE NARROWS is just another example of Mike Connelly doing what he does best- simply writing the best crime fiction novels being published today replete with superbly sketched characters and frequent plot twists and turns including one big zinger at the end. Mike's books should be carefully studied by anyone wanting to write in this subgenre. It simply doesn't get better.

Rating:
Summary: The master!
Review: Connelly is sooo good and he just keeps getting better! I Lost a bunch of sleep last night cause I could not stop reading and now that I am finished I feel a little sad cause its over! All you fans will not be disapointed, and those of you who are unfamiliar with Connelly check him out you will not be disappointed!!!! and also check out "A Tourist in the Yucatan" a great thriller mystery set south of the border!

Rating:
Summary: Great story!
Review: I've long been a fan of Connelly; I've read Blood Work, The Concrete Blonde, The Poet, Angels Flight, Trunk Music, City of Bones, Void Moon, and Black Ice and put each novel down looking with anticipation towards his next great story.

Good old Harry Bosch gets to confront a killer's killer in 'The Narrows', the Poet, one bad dude. The stuff nightmares are made of. I have all the Harry Bosch thrillers, and have even read a couple more than once.

Connelly is a master at shaping rich characters you long remember, like Bosh and the Poet; his story and plot development skills are amongst the best, as he manages to develop a complete dynamic synchronicity between the two.

Some readers don't like the author's switching between the first person and third person accounts, but it grows on you. The thrills, the chase, the suspense, the clues that drive you to logical preemptive guesswork, will all drive you happily crazy as you flip through the pages, staying up long after your normal bedtime.

I strongly recommend this book, the audio version is also great. I highly recommend 'The Da Vinci Code' by Brown, 'Therapy' by Kellerman, 'A Hole in Texas' by Wouk, 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail' by Baigent, and 'Alien Rapture' by Fouche - which is rumored to being made into a movie. Three of five of my recommendations are books based on real conspiracies, check out the reviews.

Rating:
Summary: Best of then new books by Connelly, Child, and Sandford.
Review: In a period of one week I purchased and read The Narrows, The Enemy, and Hidden Prey. By far the best read was The Narrows, which continues with characters from The Poet. Plenty of action which keeps the plot moving at a fast pace. If you are going to buy only one of these books, buy the Narrows.

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: Well Done!
Review: This book had it all. A good story, good characters and well paced writing that made it fun, interesting and easy to read. When Michael Connelly is "on," there is nobody better. In this book he is "on." And I loved the way he incorporated characters and storylines from previous works that had, until now, been unrelated. Well done!

Rating:
Summary: First-rate thriller
Review: THE NARROWS revisits Connelly's earlier books, THE POET and BLOOD WORK incorporating the characters of both into this story, but the main focus of the story is The Poet who ten years earlier committed a gruesome series of killings. Thought to be dead, we now find out that Robert Backus AKA The Poet is alive. Rachel Walling is the one credited with not only shooting The Poet, but also with major screw-ups in the case was her banished to the North Dakota office. She sees her chance to get back into the FBI's good graces when she called back into the new manhunt for Backus.

Former LAPD detective, Harry Bosch, is asked by the widow of Terry McCaleb (protagonist in BLOODWORK) to look into her husband's death. Backus emerges as the prime suspect in Bosch's case. Bosch and Walling reluctantly decide the work together when their cases intersect.

Connelly successfully intertwines the plots of the two earlier works into a suspenseful and gripping new thriller. I would recommend reading THE POET first since many of the characters are from that book. Characters from BLOODWORK are less integrated into this story so it is not really essential to know that story before the current one. We are also shown another side to Bosch's personality while he copes with being a father to a child he barely knows. Michael Connelly's characters continue to evolve with each installment of the series.

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Summary: .
Review: "Stay out of the narrows...",

the children of Los Angeles are told. Of Connelly's 14th novel, which takes its name from the LA flood drainage system, it is advice best taken. If you are new to his work, that is - because THE NARROWS is essentially both a coming together of all Connelly's work up to this point, and, I think, a renaissance. If you're a long-term reader, disregard it entirely. Dive in. Indeed, you probably already have.

The Poet is back in business. The serial killer escaped at the conclusion of Connelly's novel of the same name. The official word, though, was that he had been killed. But now he's surfaced again, and leads the FBI to a site in the barren Mojave desert where they begin to uncover fresh victims. The FBI brings in agent Rachel Walling, who worked the original case, as an advisor. Meanwhile, in L.A....an old acquaintance of Harry Bosch's dies. His widow comes to the retired homicide-detective-turned-PI and asks him to investigate, citing some very suspicious circumstances that suggest the death was anything but natural.

The pre-publication buzz about this novel was remarkable - helped along no doubt by the fact that no advanced copies were doled out, destined in the end for sites like eBay. The level of hype may be part of the reason why I'm a little disappointed. Hell, not very though, it's still a terrific book. Although while I was suspecting it might be Connelly's best, it's not quite.

As I've said, THE NARROWS is a melding of all his work to date. As a result, it is actually not quite as convincing as all the other Bosch novels unfailingly are. Too, Connelly has always been excellent at stitching his work into real-life; other authors often try, but the result often seems perfunctory and vacuous. Here, though, while the copious references might absolutely delight some fans, I thought he went slightly over the top, referencing to such an extent that it sometimes becomes rather surreal, making this book neither of this world nor quite of the fictional one - it seems to exist in an awkward limbo. Sometimes, the touches are magical, but here I think he's trying slightly too hard - after all, the reader is all too aware of the true nature of Connelly's world, and the fact that these characters and events don't exist in reality, just their own internal one - even if it's nice to think that, somewhere, they may do, and no matter how many times they chat about the movie Blood Work. (It was nice to see Ian Rankin, though, if only in pictorial rather than corporeal form!)

All that above, though, is just me being pedantic and silly. Because, when it comes right down to it, I did love this book. I didn't even mind too much that we don't spend a lot of time in L.A., Connelly's evocation of which is masterful and a great strength of his series. After a while, I didn't at all miss the exceptional passages about the city. Mainly because I didn't have time to, the plot moves at such thrilling pace. It's slick, engrossing, and interlocks just as excellently as it did in The Poet. I certainly would not be surprised if Connelly, and his characters, came back from this work even stronger than before. Considering that he's probably the best crime writer in America, that bodes incredibly well. He's also the most accomplished crime writer I know at keeping his series fresh, and once again there's a wealth of new directions he could go after this.

THE NARROWS is very well-written, very enjoyable, and very clever. It shows a crime-writer writing as crime-writers write best. The conclusion, incorporating the aforementioned narrows, is tense and, along with a nice twist, forms an excellent culmination to the book.

The last word, though, must go to Bosch. Almost stereotypically fascinating, he stands out because he is probably the least static protagonist in all crime fiction. Both his situation and his character are continually undergoing an evolution, and of course even more is to come now that he's discovered he's a parent:
"All I knew was that I didn't want to teach her anything. I felt tainted by the paths I had taken in my life and the things I knew. I had nothing from it I wanted her to have. I just wanted her to teach me."

Rating:
Summary: Sizzling
Review: "The Narrows" by Michael Connelly is probably the best book I've read in months. Of the three books I've recently had the pleasure to come across--McCrae's "The Bark of the Dogwood," "The Rule of Four," and "The Narrows," this one is the best. Excellent writing, coupled with great character developement and an impecable sense of timing make this one great book. It was simply riveting. Just riveting.

Rating:
Summary: Michael Connelly at His Best
Review: Michael Connelly brought all of his writing skills to bear on his newest book. The Narrows is one of his best, if not THE best of this series. It ties up loose ends from several earlier projects. In addition, the plot of The Narrows moves Harry Bosch's life and character forward significantly.

It was good to see Bosch shake the depression he has been in since his last days with the LAPD. But if he was still depressed, he didn't have a moment to waste on moodiness in this action-packed thriller.

I spotted a new character who seems likely to turn up in one of Connelly's future plots: Jane Davis, his next-door neighbor at the motel in Las Vegas. I will be keeping an eye out for her.