The Narrows

Michael Connelly

Harry Bosch is a retired Los Angeles police homicide detective. He gets a phone call from the widow of an old friend. Although Terry McCaleb died from a heart condition, his wife believes he was murdered. He was taking specific medications for his transplanted heart. She has discovered a problem with his meds. Someone tampered with them.

Rachel Walling is an FBI agent who has been reassigned to the Badlands after a major screw up a few years earlier. She had been in the Behavioral Sciences division and had shot a serial killer called the Poet. Although believed dead, he returns. He leaves a calling card for her - at a body dump site in Nevada. She is called in from Rapid City to be an observer once the FBI starts excavating the bodies.

McCaleb had been connected with the Behavioral Sciences division before his health was a problem. He also had connections to the Poet. Bosch believes the Poet killed McCaleb. He follows clues McCaleb had left that leads him to the body side in Nevada as well. Walling and Bosch meet - and both are determined to find the Poet and stop the man. The Poet is extremely intelligent. They can only hope they find him before he finds them...

This is the first novel by Michael Connelly that I have read. I knew about his Harry Bosch series. I didn't realize that McCaleb, Walling, and the Poet were also from earlier books. It didn't matter that I didn't know any of the characters before I read The Narrows. Their back stories were explained enough that I was able to keep up. That explains, though, why I knew I was missing pieces as I read. It was obvious to me I was dropping in the middle of these characters' stories. Yet it didn't matter to my enjoyment of the book.

The tension is built well. The Poet is eerie - another voice in the book. Connelly moves the book's point of view from Walling to the Poet to Bosch - the only section told in first person narrative. Sometimes the switch between Walling and Bosch is abrupt, but I was able to catch up quickly.

The Narrows pulled me right through. I like the way he makes the reader re-examine themselves when the characters have to re-examine themselves. I didn't the the previous books to enjoy this one, but I plan to get back to them - at least the Bosch books.

Notice:  Graphic violence,Suggestive dialogue or situations