Reviewed by: The Blind Monkey

Michael Connelly is ruining my life. I’m addicted. A Connelly-addict and I can’t find a support group for my disease. It’s four in the morning on a Monday night and I’m completely engrossed in the latest homicidal adventure of LAPD Detective Harry Bosch, Angels Flight. I can’t put it down.

This Hieromonyous Bosch guy is one bad dude! Imposing, intuitive, and down right intimidating; with a soft fuzzy underbelly that shows whenever he’s pining for his lovely (and emotionally unavailable) wife – former Feebie, former convict, Eleanor.

But I digress into sub-plots.

For those of you who have experienced the other Harry Bosch novels, you already know this about him. And I do mean experienced, because Connelly takes over your being from page one (AHHHH — Invasion of the Body Snatchers!). I actually felt Harry’s desperation as he paced his Los Angeles home at 2 in the morning and grabbed the phone, hoping against all his instincts that it is the call he is waiting for. And I joined his disappointment when the call was the assistant of Deputy Chief Irvin Irving calling in the A team (no, not THAT “A” team) for a grisly murder investigation that is sure to become a major media event.

Here’s the skinny, a lawyer is found murdered at the base of Angels Flight, an inclined railway in downtown Los Angeles on the eve of a landmark case. The lawyer is Howard Elias, a long-time adversary of the LAPD with countless enemies among the men in blue. And when the case is given to Detective Bosch, colleagues and friends become suspects as any misstep threatens to ignite racial tensions in a tumultuous city.

This story continues Connelly’s development of Detective Bosch as the hard-boiled detective and archeotypical loner. It’s a theme you’ll recognize if you’ve ever read works by early writers like Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep, 1939) or Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon, 1930). These literary greats spawned the gumshoe Private Eye with compelling plots based on deception, nail-biting suspense, and human frailty. Connelly has been writing the police detective thriller since 1992, but I think you’ll agree, it wasn’t until Angels Flight that his works became worthy of the genre.

So read it — but be sure you don’t have to go to work the next morning. You won’t be getting much shut-eye tonight!!

Hardcover1 Ed edition (January 1999) Little Brown Company; ISBN: 0316152196; Dimensions (in inches): 1.40 x 9.49 x 6.45