A Darkness More Than Night

Detective Harry Bosch is a key witness in a murder trial seeking to convict a movie producer for the strangulation death of a young actress. While he is testifying he is also being investigated for a gruesome murder of a man who had been arrested by Bosch several years earlier for murdering a prostitute but was released. Bosch becomes the main suspect as the FBI suspects he has crossed the line and has become an avenging angel.

Harry enlists the help of a retired FBI profiler, Terry McCaleb, who actually was helping the Sheriff’s department with the stalled investigation. While McCaleb was the one who initially identified Bosch as the most likely suspect, he is kicked off the case and then persuaded by Bosch to help him find the real killer before the news breaks and destroys his credibility in the murder trial for which he is the key witness. Pressed for time, McCaleb looks at the evidence from a new perspective and begins to track down the real killer.

I won’t reveal any more because it will ruin the suspense of the story. What I found interesting about this story was watching McCaleb, as a topnotch profiler, tease valuable information out of seemingly useless clues. It was also interesting to see that McCaleb’s initial conclusions were wrong, showing that psychological profiling is not an exact science.

Much of the evidence in the case revolves around the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, a 15th century Dutch painter known for his dark portrayals of judgment and damnation. McCabe makes the link to Detective Harry Bosch, whose first name is actually Hieronymus as well, because the crime scene was set up to resemble Bosch’s paintings. Connelly gives us some good art history and appreciation as McCabe investigates the connection between the paintings and the murder.

Michael Connelly is a good writer and knows how to keep the pace moving, revealing important clues at just the right time while adding enough twists to keep you guessing. The heroes are also very human, well rounded and believable. Harry Bosch has enough dark tendencies to keep his halo from glowing too brightly. Connelly clearly shows the demands of police work and how they can destroy relationships, especially marriages. When an officer becomes consumed by his work, those closest to him, especially his family, suffer.

It is easy to see how police and those who deal in the dark underside of society can become jaded, disillusioned and bitter. It is not easy living half of your life in the “darkness” of the streets of our cities and the criminal justice system, so we shouldn’t take what our public defenders do for granted. Nor should we vilify then or put them on pedestals since they are regular human beings like us thrust into extraordinary circumstances that most of us would not put up with.



This is the seventh novel in the Harry Bosch series which includes the following books(“x” indicates those I have read so far):
The Black Echo (1992) (x)
The Black Ice (1993)
The Concrete Blonde (1994)
The Last Coyote (1995)
Trunk Music (1997)
Angels Flight (1999)
A Darkness More Than Night (2001) (x)
City Of Bones (2002)
Lost Light (2003)
The Narrows (2004)
The Closers (2005)
Echo Park (2006)
The Overlook (2007)