Rating: 
Summary: "ONLY FAIR"
Review: I usually really enjoy a Michael Connelly book, however, this one was only fair. I nearly quit reading the book several times in the first 100 or so pages, but I kept on thinking it had to get better. Thank goodness it did.Cassie Black is a n ex-con who is returning to her old ways. This time she again runs into Jack Karch who was around when her old boy friend, Max, was killed. Jack is a case by him self. HE is about as sorry as they come. There is several dollars involved, a little girl and lots of killing. The boss of the casino, Victor Grimaldi, is another villan. Cassie goes through lots of, over by head, wireing tricks and crawling through air ducts to get the job done. A little to much for me. Give me a good Harry Bosch anytime.
Rating: 
Summary: Connelly makes a great read but stumbles in the ending
Review: Connelly conceives a great read with taut ticking supense that does not let go until the very end, this time without Harry Bosh, a different approach and a plot featuring two strong antagonist characters coursing to their final clash. However, after a breathtaking start, it was possible to find some flaws in the ending that don't hang together with the rest of the story, the mistakes were made creating big expectations during the anticipation of key events that were suddenly obliterated through his adding of not credible twists to help his likeable heroine Cassie Black, behaving more like a lifesaver on the beach than the top notch writer that he actually is.
Rating:
Summary: OK for genre
Review: Connelly does well with plot, and this was a hard book to put down despite the fact that the plotting was its only strong point. The characters don't have much dimension ....What did bother me was that all the bad guys delivered articulate, witty lines as though they'd all been to English prep schools before deciding to go wrong. Throwing in profanity only made them sound slightly more realistic. I found myself wishing he'd been able to pull it off without killing so many characters--the killing just got disgusting at a certain point. But I read it to the end; a page turner. That's what sells 'em.
Rating: 
Summary: Unpredictable
Review: This book had so many unseen twists and turns! The book moved along at a good clip, and had excellent details. I am in a rush to finsih this up, but this is a hands down suspense SUCCESS. BUY IT!!
Rating:
Summary: No voids in this thriller
Review: Void Moon is an excellent thriller from Michael Connelly. It was certainly the hardest to put down of the three I have read so far. Our heroine in this novel is a "baddie", one Ms. Cassidy Black, who surreptitiously steals a far greater swag than was intended in a daring cat burglar raid on a sleeping gambler in his apparently secure hotel room. With 2.5 million dollars in her custody and some dubious developers enraged by its loss, there are some very powerful and evil forces at work trying to recover the money and eliminate Cassie. There are no "goodies" in this book, only "baddies", so the reader is behind Cassie all the way. Believe me, she is a lot less bad than all the rest. Just like "Trunk Music" the action takes place in both Las Vegas and Los Angeles. The story line is set early in the novel and from that point there is no shortage of violence, suspense and surprises. The descriptions of advanced security systems used in the casinos to watch the gamblers and record just about every public space from corridors to elevators and car parks have been very well researched and written. This book is a standalone book, at least until a sequel is written, so there are no earlier stories to read first. I mentioned this in my review of "Trunk Music" which had a couple of back references. If you want to see the sequence of all Connelly's books, find out a lot more about the author and see actual photographs from many of the scenes in his books you need to visit the author's web site at http://www.michaelconnelly.com I'm giving this five stars for its excitement and for keeping me glued to the story until my eyes were drooping.
Rating:
Summary: Break-out success!
Review: Michael Connolly is always a great read, but Void Moon breaks out of the detective mold with style. This book presents a new character and could be a smash movie.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent - as always.
Review: Those who need goodies and baddies in a novel may not like this book. Because, by our standards, we only have baddies here. Cassie is a thief, Karch is a killer. The law is virtually non-existing in this book. But isn't this as it is in reality? How many cases have to be left open by the police? Or how many cases never even get recorded by the police? We have here a detective novel without detectives. So what? This time Connelly is not interested in the psyche of a cop, like Bosch or McCaleb, but in the thoughts and emotions of criminals. And this results in a more or less open manipulation of the readers. We take sides with a thief, we want her to have success, and we want her to get away. And we enjoy being manipulated, too. The moralist question why or if Cassie gets away with what she has done is secondary and hypocritical. Our sympathy with her shows that we all have our darker social sides. And we'd better accept this because this helps us to control ourselves and to better suppress antisocial urges in ourselves. An excellently written book - as always.
Rating: 
Summary: boring
Review: I could not even finish this book it was so boring! The main character was very dull and I really didn't care what happened to her. There was no suspense, action, or mystery in this book. Michael Connelly is a wonderful author but, I don't know what he was thinking when he wrote Void Moon. He should stick to cops and murders.
Rating:
Summary: Tension plus!
Review: Void Moon by Michael Connelly Little Brown 2000 This is not a Harry Bosch book but has the high quality writing and taunt style that we are used to. Cassie Black, on parole, after spending 5 years in jail for the death of her partner and lover, Max, in a robbery attempt gone bad, decides to get back into the robbery game. The planning and execution of the robbery are excruciatingly tense and keep you glued to the page. When the casino she robbed hires Jack Karch, known as "Jack of Spades" because he keeps a spade in the trunk of his car to bury bodies, to find Cassie and the 2.5 million dollars inadvertently part of the loot things begin to heat up. Psychopathic Jack is clever and ruthless but Cassie has some strengths of her own and when it becomes clear that she wants to escape with her daughter Jodie, adopted by another family while Cassie was in prison, motivation is all on Cassie's side. The writing is concise and taunt and Cassie and Jack are developed into believable characters. I enjoyed the book immensely but still look forward to the next Harry Bosch.
Rating:
Summary: Average
Review: After "Blood Work", this book really just didn't cut the mustard. The protagonist of the story, Cassie Black, just isn't a believable character, and this does not make a good basis for the story. She's two dimensional and chock-full of the stereotypes that male authors all too often attribute to their female characters. The spiel on the inside cover (or back, if you own the paperback version) of the book would have you believe that this is going to be a tense, roller coaster ride of a story. Not so. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be a secret that Cassie has a daughter, but if it was, then the dust cover gives it away immediately. The main villain of the piece, Karch, is also not very engaging. I believe that all villains should be inherently likeable, or so abhorrent that they make you want to rip a page out of the book. Karch is neither of these; he is simply a bad charicature of every Las Vegas hitman you've ever seen in a movie or soap opera. Connolly tries his hardest to bring a sense of mystery and tension to the book, but is humiliatingly defeated by the fact that it's a completely predictable storyline. By far his weakest work yet.
| 
