| In A Darkness More than Night, Michael Connelly brings together in a clash of values Terry McCaleb, the semi-retired profiler of Blood Work and Harry Bosch, the burned-out LAPD veteran who most recently appeared in Angels Flight. McCaleb is called in unofficially when someone hog-ties acquitted rapist and murderer Gunn and leaves him to strangle himself, and he soon finds everything from the way Gunn died to the plastic owl left watching the corpse pointing him solidly in one direction. Meanwhile Bosch is orchestrating a high-profile case against a Hollywood producer with a taste for strangling his mistresses and a security adviser whose dislike of Bosch goes back a very long way... This is an ingenious thriller which is also a powerful parable about justice and just how far it is possible to go in pursuit of it; Connelly is as intelligent about human motivation and the misunderstandings that destroy friendship as he is about forensics, art history and the mechanics of prosecution. By bringing together two series characters, he ensures that we care passionately about the outcome of his puzzle and his argument; we have a lot invested in who is right, and who is innocent. --Roz Kaveney |
