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Summary: "BLOOD WORK IS VERY GOOD WORK"!!!!!!!
Review: A great book! If you like mysteries you will like this one. Connelly goes with a different character in Terrell McCaleb, an ex FBI agent who has had a heart transplant. He gets involved in trying to find who killed Gloria Torres. There are many surprises along the way. I had a hard time putting the book down until I could finish it. Terry uses all his past abilities to tract down the killer. Then when he does find him, what happenes? Need to read to find out. A great book.
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Summary: Blood is thicker than water
Review: This is another thrilling murder mystery from the pen of top crime writer Michael Connelly. Ex-FBI investigator, Terry McCaleb, is recovering from a heart transplant operation and expecting a few months of relaxed and quiet recuperation. By the end of Chapter One, McCaleb has not only found out that his new heart came from the victim of a violent murder but has also agreed to help track down the murderer. That he is doing this for the victim's sister who just happens to be drop dead gorgeous sets the plot. At first it seems that a serial killer is responsible, but not all is as it seems. When you are an ex-cop, investigations are always that much more difficult. When other real cops (LAPD) have failed to solve the crime, they have their own agendas, and helping McCaleb is just not on the list. The story settles down two or three times, seducing the reader into going with the flow, and then another amazing twist occurs which leaves you wondering if you can possibly guess who did it. This is an imaginative, well-written, suspense filled novel with just the right amount of romance to lighten the sinister theme. Like all of Connelly's novels I have so far read, it will keep you enthralled until the last chapter.
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Summary: Just discovered this author, thankfully...
Review: This is just a great book. Michael Connelly writes an interesting, fast-paced novel with great characters. This author was recommended to me from someone who read this in one sitting. Well, I am a "content" (pokey) reader so it did take me more time but I enjoyed it all the more! I will definately seek out more work by this author. Always looking for a sub for my ex-fave author (and you know who you are Ms. Cornwell). Thumbs up!
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Summary: Engaging
Review: This was the first Michael Connolly book I read, and because of it I have since bought five others. The plot is engaging from the very start. Ex-FBI agent Terry McCaleb, whose speciality was profiling serial killers, has retired from the Bureau after a heart transplant and is living on his boat in LA harbour. Having turned his back on fighting crime, he has no intentions of helping Graciela Rivers, a woman whose sister has been murdered, until he finds out that the transplanted heart that saved his life belonged to her. With this knowledge, he feels obliged to investigate Gloria's death, against the express wishes of his doctor and knowing it could have serious consequences for his health. All McCaleb has to go on is a video tape from a convenience store showing a masked man hold up the owner and then shoot the two witnesses. Add to this the hostility he receives from the two LAPD detectives assigned the case, and it seems like McCaleb isn't going to get far. However, it soon becomes clear that the crime is not as random as it seems, and McCaleb is on the trail of someone a lot more sinister than an opportunistic thief. Connolly writes "Blood Work" with an unrelenting pace and a real flair for knowing exactly how to string the reader along. You'll be as hooked as one of the fish in the harbour!
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Summary: Heart stoppingly good!
Review: Blood Work - what can I say about the book that had me glued day and night till it was over? The story centres on an ex-FBI agent who has recently undergone a heart transplant, only to discover that it was made possible by the murder of the innocent mother of a young boy. Although advised by his doctor against investigating the case, McCaleb attempts to show the reluctant police that the trail to the killer is not dead. I found the plot exciting and on many occasions was so drawn into the main character's mind that I found myself literally having to stop reading while my pulse dropped in case my new heart would be rejected! Now that's a sure sign of being onto something good!
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Summary: carefully plotted pulp book
Review: The Story: Former FBI-man McCaleb survives a heart-transplant only to find out that his doner had been murdered in a shop-lifting incident. It starts out as an easy investigation but becomes very complicated in the end. The Character: McCaleb is no Bosch - and that is ok. Although not perfectly convincing, this is a nice change of character. McCaleb is older and physically disabled which makes his work less action-orientated. The Execution: Masterly plottet, this has to be the best story so far by Connelly, whose pulp-stories always entertain. The story concludes nicely, but then a look at your hands will show you that over 100 pages are still left and you should be prepared for a very clever surprise ending. Sometimes the story drags along, a little bit less (or a subplot more) could not have harmed. But all the Connelly-ingrediences are there: Cases-within a case, old cases which are told _em route_ but are worth getting their own book, characters from other books keep showing up and here and there a nice hint on which crime novels the author himself is currently reading. The Verdict: Plotwise his strongest book, McCaleb is a more casual character than Bosch, a bit too boring in the middle, but nevertheless a fine piece of fiction.
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Summary: Excellent, excellent read!
Review: Blood work by Michael Connelly Little Brown 1998 Retired FBI profiler Terry McCaleb has just received a heart transplant and is slowly recovering when Graciela Rivers steps onto his boat and asks him to find her sister's murderer. Only when Terry discovers that Graciela's sister is Gloria Torres, the donor of his new heart, does he find himself inexorably drawn in to the search for Gloria's murderer. The investigation is at a standstill until Terry ties Gloria's murder to another local murder and through meticulous searching to a third murder committed with the same gun. Puzzled by the coincidences in these three cases McCaleb again goes over the police reports and videos again and again until he stumbles on the thread that ties all three murders together and also staggeringly, to him. Meanwhile Terry finds himself drawn to Graciela and her dead sister's son, 6 year-old Raymond and feels himself opening up to feelings that he have been dormant for many years. When Graciela and Raymond are kidnaped and held hostage Terry's search leads him to abandon all reasonable care for himself and his new heart and finally track down this cold blooded murder. This is and amazingly well written book chock full of information on heart transplant care and the psychological abyss facing the transplant recipient. Terry McCaleb is a very sympathetic protagonist and the characters of Graciela and Jaye Winston, his policewoman accomplice are well drawn with a good sense of reality. This is the first mystery I have read in quite a while that leaves me with a sense of satisfaction and enjoyment. I recommend it to all mystery fans.
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Summary: CHILLINGLY PLOTTED BY A CRACKERJACK AUTHOR
Review: Michael Collins is a crackerjack author who conjures up chilling plots. A former Los Angeles Times police reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist he knows of what he writes, as is evidence in his six previous novels featuring rebellious LAPD detective Harry Bosch. Now, in Blood Work, his latest get-a-grip-on-your-armchair thriller Mr. Connelly introduces us to Terry McCaleb, a tough, vengeance driven FBI agent whose stress induced heart condition forces him into early retirement. While still active McCaleb captained investigations of serial murders in the Los Angeles area, he "carried with him a bottomless reservoir of rage for the men he hunted....he wanted them to pay for the horrible manifestations of their fantasies. Blood debts had to be paid in blood. That was why in the bureau's serial killer unit the agents called what they did 'blood work.'" But after being sidelined by a heart transplant, this seems to be all in his past. He spends his days recuperating, living quietly on a fishing boat in Los Angeles harbor, hoping some day to return to his hometown on Catalina Island. His hitherto unknown placid existence is interrupted by an unexpected visit from Graciela Rivers, an attractive nurse who informs him that her sister has been wantonly murdered and he is the recipient of the slain woman's heart. Graciela asks McCaleb to help solve the case. Again believing that debts must be paid, McCaleb ignores doctor's orders and his own better judgment to track someone he initially concludes is a random killer. Far from being a random shooter, the murderer is a crafty psychopath. McCaleb first connects the woman's murder to another slaying, and then follows a danger strewn path to an astounding conclusion that pits him against the ultimate atrocity: "He now knew that the evil of these two killings came together in the form of a person who killed not for money, not out of fear and not for revenge against his victims. This evil went far beyond that. This person killed for pleasure and to fulfill a fantasy that burned like a virus inside his brain." Mr. Connelly is not only a careful, clever plot master, he is also a classy writer, lifting the thriller genre to new levels. No stretches of the imagination here - everything falls neatly into place as the pace accelerates, finally rushing to explode in a shocking finish. While Mr. Connelly already has a healthy coterie of devoted fans, he's bound to win more with this masterful tale of suspense, a story so real that it brings heinous crime shiveringly close to home.
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Summary: A Thrilling Read with Some Flaws
Review: There is no writer I know of who can turn a police procedural as effectively as Michael Connelly, and while "Blood Work" is not the best novel I've read by him, it is still a compelling tale. It is not, however, the most inventive story he has yet concocted. This is the first of his books not in the Bosch series that I've read, but it sticks to the Bosch formula so closely that it is easy to forget at times that this is not, in fact, a novel in that series. Instead of his cantankerous police detective, we have former FBI agent McCaleb who, beginning his recovery from his heart transplant surgery, agrees to look into the murder to the woman whose death provided him with the heart that saved his life. Just like Bosch, McCaleb a) finds himself squaring off against an obstructive and incompetent detective whose main task in life is to hinder the wheels of justice; b) is aided by a kind-hearted insider who recognizes McCaleb's innate ability to solve crimes that others cannot; c) must face the inevitable moment when he is taken off the case and therefore must opt to go it alone, the consequences be damned. Connelly, in other words loves his cliches. And despite the cliches, all of his books are not only good, they are great. I never really liked McCaleb and I never really disliked him. The characters in the novel are almost beside the point. Connelly is so skillful at constructing a compelling mystery and leading the reader through the stages of the investigation, that the rest hardly matters. The reader is too breathless to even notice that the characters are flat. Connelly doesn't shy away from the false leads and blind allies that hinder real investigations, and the important clues, when they come, are so devastating that it becomes impossible to put the book down. Information is parsed out in the most skillful and addictive way imaginable. I won't say too much about the conclusion, but the final 10% or so of the book devolves into a Hollywood-esque sequence that is both silly and unnecessary. Otherwise, the book is absolute entertainment.
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Summary: Excellent!!!
Review: I am new to Michael Connelly....but i'm not new to serial killer books and this one was up at the top! It was an easy read from beginning to end...i liked how he get's you into the action right away without boring backround information, he adds that as we go along, the end was also excellent;) this book kept me wanting more and i am now proud to say...becuase of this book...i am a Michael Connelly fan and am planning on reading most, if not all, of his books. Last Word - EXCELLENT BOOK!
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