The Purity of Vengeance by Jussi Adler-Olsen

The Purity of Vengeance by Jussi Adler-Olsen - In another dramatic prologue Nete, having been told by her wealthy husband that he is leaving her because she never told him she was sterlized, yanks the steering wheel to force their car off the road towards the sea.

(To write this review I found some modest use of spoilers were needed.)

Thirty-five years later in 2010 Carl Mørck is one of the few Copenhagen police officers not suffering from the flu. His assistant, Assad, has a spectacular red nose.

Purity Party leader, Dr. Curt Wad, may be 87 but he is looking forward to the party gaining representation in the Danish Parliament. He remains absolutely committed to the Party.

The Party’s positions have remained unchanged during its history:

The association for the defence of the nation’s unblemished blood and moral values had gone by three different names since Curt’s father had founded the movement in his stubborn endeavors to ensure racial purity and the raising of public morals. In the 1940’s he had called it the Anti-Debauchery Chommittee. Later it became the Community of Danes, then eventually the Purity Party.

Applying those principles the Party believes “Tamils, Pakistanis, Turks, Afghans, Vietnamese, all had to be stopped in the manner of any other invasive impurity. Effectively and without hesitations”.

The Party is convinced of the benefits of eugenics. It does not just advocate eugenics. Wad has turned over abortions and sterlizations to a younger colleague.

Assad reveals one of his international connections when he uses information from Lithuanian intelligence services to terrify a tough Lithuanian criminal who had thrown acid into the face of a brothel owner whose brother is a retired police officer.

A personal death long ago is brought back to Mørck. In 1978 his uncle had drowned in a 75 cm deep brook while Mørck and his cousin were ogling some girls bicycling nearby.

An excavation turns up a body at the home where Mørck, Hardy and Anker had been shot in 2008.

Mørck’s ex, Viggo, has decided to re-marry and wants several hundred thousand kroner as her share of the family home.

The nasty past and unpleasant present would totally depress Mørck, were it not for the passionate Mona Ibsen.

Assad and Rose, while researching a missing person case, cleverly look for other missing persons cases from that time and find four. Statistically impossible Department Q starts looking for connections.

Back in 1987 Nete carefully plans revenge upon those who had ruined her youth. She has used her training as a lab assistant to learn how to make poison from henbane (a relative of nightshade).

The mental health issues of Rose / Yrsa become clearer after Carl speaks to her actual sister, Yrsa. Different personalities help Rose cope with life.

A reader dare not pause in their attention to the plot or you, as I was, will be forced to go back because of a missed development in one or more of the varied sub-plots.

As a woman with a conscience Nete finds revenge gives little joy and even less release from the memories of the cruelties inflicted upon her in her youth.

As with the villains of his earlier books the wicked of The Purity of Vengeance are not caricatures. Wad loves and supports his dying wife, Beate. He has a good relationship with his children. Intended or not I was left to puzzle how a man and a doctor who loved deeply and helped many in his medical practice could be so cold and vicious to those he considered inferior. 

When there can be no legal punishment for crimes decades in the past the enticement of self-justice can become overwhelming.

There was a startling twist that resolved the main plot. There is much in Mørck’s life to be resolved in the series. The ending was more Hollywood than I like in serious crime fiction. 

Adler-Olsen has written another uncomfortable compelling mystery.

****

Adler-Olsen, Jussi - (2011) - The Keeper of Lost Causes; (2012) - The Absent One; (2020) - A Conspiracy of Faith

The Flowers of 2020

As summer winds down I took some photos a couple of weeks ago of the flowers in our backyard. The lilies bloomed later this year but have been worth the wait. The delphiniums have reached up 6' from the ground.

The flowers brighten our days through the summer.

Exchanging Emails with Another Rural Canadian Lawyer

Shelagh Mathers

Last year I wrote a review of Blackwater Bluff by S.M. Hurley. The author is actually Shelagh Mathers who practised law in rural Ontario. We recently exchanged emails on the practice of law in rural Canada and Blackwater Bluff. I appreciate Shelagh's response and am looking forward to her next book.

****

Dear Shelagh

I appreciated your email concerning my review of Blackwater Bluff.

Rather than ask an author questions directly (examination in chief) or in a leading manner (cross-examination) I like to include some questions within a letter (written interrogatories I guess).

As with yourself I practise law in a rural setting. Melfort has about 6,000 people while I see Picton is in the range of 5,000 residents. I came to Melfort as an articling position was available in 1975 and I was familiar with the community having grown up about 35 km. away. What brought you to Picton?

I have enjoyed living and working in Melfort and have been here 45 years. Law students occasionally ask me what is attractive about being a lawyer in Melfort. I start by saying I like being able to walk to work. Is there an aspect of life as a rural Ontario lawyer that you like to highlight when talking to students?

Few authors of legal fiction feature “country” lawyers. Looking through the dozensof legal mysteries I have reviewed on my blog only a handful are rural lawyers. Even fewer are in communities the size of Melfort or Picton.

In Canada the only other mystery I have read with a rural lawyer is Wishful Seeing by Janet Kellough which takes place in rural 19th Century Ontario not far from you at Coburg.

John Grisham is unique in creating lawyers who work in both rural and urban areas of the United States. His mysteries set in fictional Ford County Mississippi are my favourites. Jake Brigance is an excellent lawyer. I think Sycamore Row is his best book.

Yet, while big city lawyers occupy most legal fiction, the most famous legal mystery of all, To Kill a Mockingbird, is  set in rural Alabama. Atticus Finch’s fame circles the globe.

Were you tempted or even “encouraged” to set your mystery down the 401 in Toronto? Saskatchewan author, Anthony Bidulka, told me he was pressed to place his Russel Quant mysteries in America rather than Saskatoon.

I am glad you chose to have Augie de Graaf practise law in rural Ontario. I was instantly attracted to the book.

I like reading about fictional lawyers whose personalities are reflected in their offices. It is my experience that you can learn a great deal about a real life lawyer from their office. I was taken with the lawyer in the book who had live butterflies in her office. I also have a butterfly collection though my butterflies are ceramic creations. Looking at my colourful butterflies brightens every day at the office. Might you have a collection or display of butterflies or other objects within your own office?

The opening scene in Blackwater Bluff where Augie is attacked and injured by a criminal defendant during a trial brought to my mind a real life story I recounted in my review of a young prosecutor who broke her leg while rushing about in the courtroom during a jury trial. Was the attack in your book inspired by a real life event?

Having been a lawyer in the same rural area for decades often means I have represented clients and family members in multiple ways. I may have acted with regard to criminal charges or family breakups or estate disputes or buying a house or drawing up a will or probating an estate. For a few families I have had all those experiences. By dealing with all their personal legal needs there is often a significant personal relationship. I believe those connections take place infrequently in large cities. Would your experience be comparable?

Extending those connections to fellow lawyers I see Augie knows well the lawyers of her community. Big city law also has personal connections. I spent time in Toronto, especially during the Krever Commission in the 1990’s, on blood litigation. My sons, who are lawyers in big firms in Calgary, know a lots of lawyers well. I would say I know the lawyers of Northeast Saskatchewan better. I think our modest numbers and constant interaction, professionally and personally, creates a closer bond. I would be interested in your thoughts on this aspect of rural practice.

I hope your next book is soon published.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes.

Bill Selnes

****

 Dear Bill

Thanks for your letter! Certainly the most pleasant written interrogatory I’ve come across.

If I had been single, without 2 kids under 3, and husband with a job in the small town, I might have made my way to Toronto or Ottawa to practice, but in hindsight  I would have been miserable I think. When we moved to Picton, and “The County” in 1987 it was a bucolic backwater that had not yet been found by Toronto types who later discovered there was a direction besides north.

Now that I am retired (which I highly recommend) and The County seems to be the only vacation destination for an endless stream of folks with Covid cabin fever, the ability to escape to the family cottage is a blessing. We’ve been here for a month and a half with only a few excursions to town. I grew up here, it’s in my bones, so I guess I’m just generally inclined to small places and not many people.

I know Janet - she lives in the County and she and Vicky Delaney invited me to participate in last year’s Women Killing It mystery writer’s festival they have been putting on for a few years. Janet and Vicky are both delightful.

The only settings I’ve ever contemplated for the books are the County, and the cottage area (my older son keeps poking at me to set something in this area). The County setting is constrained by its natural water border and readers seem to love the various known locations. The cottage area is just somewhere I know, from the location of the lichens to where I can usually find a butterfly chrysalis or two.

In my former life I was a biologist and quit my PhD program to go to law school. I have quite a soft spot for all manner of 6 legged creatures (except cockroaches and wasps and hornets). Visiting butterfly conservatories is a delightful past time, so I thought “why not put one in a lawyer’s office”.

The opening scene was indeed inspired by a courtroom brawl. My client wanted to talk to his girlfriend and the cops said no and my client tried to get up to do so anyway, and they tackled him. I’ll never forget his face squished into the carpet. It was so unnecessarily brutal.

Being a small town lawyer was a delight, but I think one has to be comfortable with mushy boundaries. I like my professionals to be humans, so I’m fine with being seen buying potatoes and booze. Not all the professionals I know want to be ordinary mortals. I enjoyed being a part time Crown attorney, and for the most part, when I saw the folks I was prosecuting, later on the street, they were pleasant, and sometimes they would hire me for matters after the fact! Continuity through generations was also something I experienced, having practiced from 1988 to 2020. What I learned about other lawyers told me how a file would progress - if it was Suzie Q it was going to be trouble, and if it was Jim Bob we would be settling sooner rather than later.

When talking to prospective small town lawyers ( a dying breed ) I do highlight the benefits of a 10 minute walk and going home for lunch every day, and similar things. I also mention that if you’re in it for the money look elsewhere.

Thanks for your email! Good questions!

Best regards

Shelagh

****

Blackwater Bluff  and Sitting in the Dock by S.M. Hurley

A Conspiracy of Faith by Jussi Adler-Olsen

(26. - 1051.) A Conspiracy of Faith by Jussi Adler-Olsen - In a chilling prologue two brothers are bound in a building facing a grim fate. One uses his own blood to write a message he slips into a bottle that he drops into the water beneath the building.

Carl Mørck, still feeling guily over the quadriplegia of his partner Hardy, has had Hardy moved into his home.

At work asbestos dust has forced Department Q upstairs. Mørck confronts an officious bureaurcrat from Health and Safety explaining Q’s presence in the basement is not a work area but “archive briefing space” and directs a partition be placed between the “space” and the contaminated area. To achieve their return downstairs Mørck’s supervisor acquiesces to a scheme where 3 desks are set up in an upper corridor to be occupied by Department Q whenever Health and Safety come for an inspection.

In Scotland the bottle, having washed ashore years earlier, is finally noticed sitting on a police office window and analyzed. It is difficult to decipher the message. Once determined to be Danish the paper and bottle are sent to the Danish police and then to Department Q.

Rose and Assad mount blowups of the writing on the wall as they work upon completing the message. There are extensive gaps.

The focus of the rest of the force is upon a series of arsons with a deceased man found at each location. The common clue is a groove around the little finger of each victim. Assad notices a comparable groove on the body of one of their cold cases. The discovery intensifies the investigation.

At the same time a predator is stalking a family who are members of the Mother Church, a religious sect more like a cult, which worships the Mother of God. He selects his victims from intensely religious denominations such as the Mother Church and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Uncommon in my recent reading experience the predator has a wife and child. He leaves them behind when he leaves on a “business trip” allegedly involving the worlds of intelligence services or undercover police work.

He is a calculating man, the embodiment of evil. He will charm and manipulate his prey. In this case he is focused on a 12 year old girl, Magdalena, and her slightly older brother, Samuel. Adler-Olsen has a talent for describing wickedness. As the predator has no real name through the book I shall call him X. 

He looks for families with lots of children as he kidnaps two at a time for ransom.

X. grew up in a severe home:

In the place where they were no one ever laughed. Laughter lines in faces were something he saw in the town, and he found them displeasing. His life was without laughter. Without joy. Not since he was five years old …

With Rose, her sister Yrsa, a former forensic investigator turned cafeteria worker and Assad contemplating the message, words gradually emerge. It is a complex crossword puzzle. There are so many missing letters, even words. I looked forward to seeing the next words being determined. I found myself contemplating the message.

Department Q is not aware of the continuing kidnappings. As a cold case there is not the sense of urgency of an ongoing kidnapping. Only the reader knows how urgent the situation is for Samuel and Magdadelena.

When some forensic evidence provides a break in the case and the police come to understand there is a monster who could be still preying on religious children the pace accelerates.

There is a heart pounding car chase.

At the same time Department Q is pursuing the arson investigations. Forensic accounting leads the way. I struggled to see why the arsons were a part of the plot.

And then the pace becomes unrelenting as Department Q uses bits of information to lead them forward.

X is resourceful. He plans for the unexpected. He has escape routes from everywhere he travels. He has identities beyond count. He is ruthless in pursuing his goals lacking empathy or conscience. Yet he loves his 18 month old son. I will remember X.

Adler-Olsen has written a complex story that at times I wished I had to suspend disbelief but which I found all too plausible. For every plot turn at which I wondered how could that happen there is a credible explanation. He is an impressive writer of crime fiction. I plan to proceed to reading the next in the series, The Purity of Vengeance. 

****

Adler-Olsen, Jussi - (2011) - The Keeper of Lost Causes; (2012) - The Absent One

A False Mirror by Charles Todd

Reading is going slowly right now so I am reaching back to 2008 for a short review I had not published. It has been years since I read Charles Todd. I am thinking it is time I read another.

****

17. - 427.) A False Mirror by Charles Todd - Superintendent Bowles would like to be rid of Ian Rutledge but Rutledge continues to be a good police officer. Stephen Mallory was a young officer under Rutledge who cracked and was sent home. When Corporal Hamish McLeod cracked he was executed. Mallory is suspected of attacking Matthew Hamilton, the husband of the woman he left behind. When confronted Mallory panics and seeks sanctuary with Felicity Hamilton. It becomes a form of hostage situation at her suggestion. Mallory convinces local inspector, Bennett, that he will not surrender Mrs. Hamilton and her maid unless Rutledge comes and finds the evidence to demonstrate his innocence. Rutledge comes and investigates. Unlike current hostage situations essentially one officer guards the house. There is no tactical team planning an assault. People come and go from the house based on their promises. It is a disjointed story with less convincing actions by the characters. It is not credible that Mallory would not have been the leading suspect and arrested when one of the hostages dies in the house. It did not flow as well as the earlier mysteries. Hamish remains an intriguing spirit commenting on events. There are more murders and a murky investigation. For the first time I sensed the two authors were not fully connected. (Apr. 19/08)

****

Todd, Charles – (2000) - Legacy of the Dead; (2002) - Watchers of Time and Fearsome Doubt; (2005) - A Cold Treachery; (2006) - A Long Shadow; (2008) - A False Mirror; (2010) - A Duty to the Dead

Clothes in The Curious Eat Themselves

I have learned to pay attention to the clothes of characters through Clothes in Books, the fine blog of Moira Redmond. In reading The Curious Eat Themselves by John Straley I decided to keep track of how characters are dressed when they are introduced to the reader.

I will provide information on the character after each description. See if what they are is what you expected from what they wore.

George Doggy - “He was wearing a warm-up jacket from the Seattle Mariners open to the waist, except oddly, the top button. He had his trooper’s shield stuck in his shirt pocket and this kept his coat cocked out at an odd rake”

(Former Alaska State Trooper and now adviser to a series of state governors because of his unflinching honesty.)

Hannah - Two descriptions:

1.) “She was wearing a black tank top and had on skin-tight jeans with a bandanna around her knee. She had the skiff man’s baseball cap on backwards. The tank top draped down, almost exposing her nipples.”

2.) “Hannah was wearing her rubber boots folded down, and her canvas pants tucked loosely inside. She had on a plum silk shirt and wore a black beret with a silver Tlingit killer whale pin on its crown. Her pile coat lay folded on her lap”

(For Cecil she is “the woman who used to love me”. The first description involves her coked up days when drugs drove her life. The second is years later when she has gained sobriety and become a social worker.)

Lolly - “She was almost six feet tall, and we stood eye to eye. Her left eyetooth sported a gold cap. She wore a loose-fitting silk blouse and a purple jacket with padded shoulders over tight stretch pants. And as we stood in the doorway … the hem of her blouse fluttered onto the inside edge of my coat.”

(Proprietress of the Gotham - a cheap Ketchikan hotel.)

Louise - “.... was soft-spoken and had that young aristocratic look of a modern wilderness adventurer with expensive water-repellent clothes. They were black and gray with accents of vibrant lavender. She had on soft shoes and a Norwegian sweater. But her hands were large, deeply creased with callouses, and she had pale crescents of scars of the front edge of her left hand.”

(Louise Root is a college educated environmentalist who worked as a cook at an isolated mine and is the murder victim.)

Todd’s Dad - “He always wore a faded canvas jacket and a greasy ball cap covered with various enamel bird and fish pins. He’d hold his beer glass and cigarette in the same hand and cover his pile of change with his other hand, …”

(A logging mechanic who took “to drinking hard” after his wife died and was then permanently injured by a chain hoist.)

Dickie Stein - “... was wearing baggy shorts and green high-top sneakers. He had a haircut that made his head look vaguely like a toaster, and his T-shirt read U.S. OUT OF NORTH AMERICA.”

(A Harvard law graduate at 19 who is now practising law in Sitka.)

Lee Altman - “He was tired. I could tell from halfway down the street. He was wearing a camel’s hair coat, and a flannel shirt and he sagged into them as if he had been sleeping in his clothes for a week. On his feet were low-cut rubberized shoes that bulged out with some sort of synthetic insulation.”

(A middle aged fixer for the mining company, Global)

Charlie Potts - “He was looking up and down the street like a lost tourist while fussing with his silver lighter, banging it against his thigh and then sheltering it from the wind and against his cigarette …. appeared to be wearing a yellow cardigan sweater under his raincoat; his leather shoes had tassels on them.”

(The tough aide to the fixer.)

Steven Mathews - “Sitting there was a man smoking a pipe and wearing a flannel shirt, straddling the bench with a double-bited-axe sunk in the wood between his legs. He has on leather gloves and was holding a twelve-inch flat file.”

(Environmental guru.)

Sy Brown - “.... he was wearing a canvas duster-type raincoat, a broad-brimmed hat, and some odd-looking silver jewelry. He was nervously flattening his moustache against his upper lip …”

(One of the best defense attorneys in Alaska.)

Conspicuous by its absence is what the main character, private investigator Cecil Younger, was wearing when he opened the narration. As far as I could see there is no description in the opening chapters beyond Cecil putting on a “rubber rain suit” to go out searching in the Sitka rain. In the words of Moira, the lack of description of Cecil’s apparel, was a “tragically missed opportunity”. Maybe in the next book.

****

Straley, John - (2019) - The Woman Who Married a Bear and Maureen's Reply; (2020) - The Curious Eat Themselves

The Curious Eat Themselves by John Straley

The Curious Eat Themselves by John Straley (1993) - Cecil Younger is watching the water under Creek Street in Ketchikan, Alaska with Hannah, “the woman who used to love me”, as a dive team searches for the body of his client, Louise Root. Hannah is bitter:

“I sent her for help, Cecil.
For Christ’s sake.
I sent her to you for help.”

Cecil has no answer as the naked body is found and pulled from the water. Her throat has been slashed.

George Doggy, Special Assistant to the Commissioner, is present. Long past retirement he provides sage advice to Governors in need of sound counsel.

Root had complained of being raped at a party by men she worked with at the Otter Creek mine. Unable to get the attention of (state) troopers or local police. Hannah, her long time friend, had sent her to Younger who was ready to investigate.

Hannah has to know more about what happened despite the obvious danger, but she husbands her knowledge.

Retreating to Sitka, Cecil is retained by Global which owns the Otter Creek Mine to search for information on Steven Mathews, a very public environmentalist.

Hannah joins him and strong emotions are stirred, They go to an island a short distance from town where Cecil has a roughly made sauna of cedar. In a sensuous passage they soak up the cedar scented vapour, exchange blood to confirm he will never betray her and then swim in the ocean amongst “billows of herring that flickered with the phosphorescence”.

At home Cecil’s roommate, Toddy, is devastated for his black Lab dog, Nelson, is missing. . Toddy, who is autistic, is desperate to find Nelson. Cecil finds Nelson who is dead after being hit by a truck or car. Unable to think of the words to explain the death Cecil does not tell Toddy. Cecil feels the ache of Toddy’s pain..

Mathews had come north to Alaska from the Lower Forty-Eight. He says he talks to the whales and the trees. He talked about “taking control of ‘our’ lands” at meetings of the Tlingit. And then he wore a shirt with a killer whale sewn on it saying that because he had an “affinity” for killer whales he was a part of the killer whale clan. Its members react negatively. The Tlingit were bound to react skeptically to someone described as an “environmental guru”.

When Cecil meets Mathews he is confounded. As with most people Cecil had pre-conceptions before meeting the man. Their conversation has a philosophical nature that unsettles Cecil.

Later Cecil interviews a man in jail whose mind was altered by some minutes without oxygen. Cecil asks if anyone can testify they saw him commit murder. He answers:

“I don’t know. The fish were running. Maybe a
gull.”

There is a powerful scene involving a Beaver bush plane (Cecil jumps out the door of the plane as it is taking off.)

At the heart of the book is the earth. An executive of Global tells Cecil:

“Real wealth comes from the earth. The people who want to control the earth, the ones who say they are speaking as advocates for it, really want to protect their wealth, their invesmtent, if you will, in this abstraction that the government calls money.”

Extracting, exploiting, exporting the resources of the earth is as real in Saskatchewan as Alaska. 

Global expands its verbal expectations of Cecil. He is more at the mercy of his investigation than in charge.

The distances of Alaska must seem outlandish to those who live in more occupied areas of the world. Cecil travels over 1,600 km south to north and back again and never leaves Alaska. I am familiar with such long journeys in Western Canada.

Cecil, his personal demons barely at bay, is on the edge of returning to drink throughout the book. Known to be a sad drunk he is equally sad sober.

The story is interesting. The characters are intriguing. The use of setting is once again spectacular.

The first half of the book sparkles. The second half is alright. The plot becomes implausible for a while as Cecil abruptly takes off for Prudhoe Bay on the north slope of Alaska. I found the lead up to the ending contrived. I do want to read the next in the series, more to follow Cecil’s life than for his next case.

****

Straley, John - (2019) - The Woman Who Married a Bear and Maureen's Reply

Fair Warning by Michael Connelly

Fair Warning by Michael Connelly - Connelly does not write many books with a message. In Fair Warning he clearly fears the risks of information gathered from personal DNA tests for genealogical or personal reasons being compromised. Evil is about.

McEvoy was the journalist in an earlier “message” book, The Scarecrow, where the issue was the collection of vast amounts of information in data farms.

Connelly continues to describe the downsizing of traditional newspapers and the efforts, somewhat desperate, of terminated journalists trying to create their own online news organizations.

McEvoy is working for Fair Warning which is a small consumer product investigation site which seeks to place stories in partnership with such organizations as the Los Angeles Times. Such partnerships allow the Times to avoid the costs of salaried sources of stories.

When a pair of LAPD detectives aggressively question him over the death of Tina Portrero he reacts by pursuing what happened to her. 

The actions of the detectives are portrayed as intrusive and insulting. Harry Bosch is also aggressive. His actions are justified as leading to killers. Depending on whether the character is the good police officer or the bad police officer will be the interpretation of comparable actions.

As McEvoy delves into Portrero’s life he finds she was concerned about cyber stalking. Once again depending on whether the internet searcher is good or bad will result in an assessment of whether the searcher is a researcher or a predator.

What reflects the genius of Connelly is that he takes her method of death, Atlanto-occipital dislocation (AOD), where the head is twisted until the spinal column is broken and turns it into the pivotal fact for the investigation. In Potrero’s death the killer has manually snapped her neck.

McEvoy, cleverly using the internet, finds there are a number of such deaths.

His further investigation takes him into the world of personal genetic testing. It was frightening to read of the lack of regulation with regard to the sale of such information by the companies to which samples are sent for analysis. We have seen the use of such data for public benefit such as the finding of the Golden State killer but what about potentially wicked uses of the data.

Former FBI agent, Rachel Walling, who is also a former McEvoy lover is re-introduced in a somewhat awkward way to the story. It was unconvincing how she was used to liaise with her former employer and how much they were willing to share with McEvoy.

As with the villains of his recent books we learn little about the character Shrike in Fair Warning. The Shrike is an almost satanic figure who causes nightmares.

The first half of the book did not grip me in the way most Connelly books have me anxiously reading to see what happens next in the story. I was absorbed in the second half as the chase accelerated. I thought for a few pages it might be like The Poet in leaving resolution with regard to the killer to another book. It had a climactic ending which would be a dandy Hollywood movie finish.

****

Connelly, Michael – (2000) - Void Moon; (2001) - A Darkness More than Night; (2001) - The Concrete Blonde (Third best fiction of 2001); (2002) - Blood Work (The Best);  (2002) - City of Bones; (2003) - Lost Light; (2004) - The Narrows; (2005) - The Closers (Tied for 3rd best fiction of 2005); (2005) - The Lincoln Lawyer; (2007) - Echo Park; (2007) - The Overlook; (2008) - The Brass Verdict; (2009) – The Scarecrow; (2009) – Nine Dragons; (2011) - The Reversal; (2011) - The Fifth Witness; (2012) - The Drop; (2012) - Black Echo; (2012) - Harry Bosch: The First 20 Years; (2012) - The Black Box; (2014) - The Gods of Guilt; (2014) - The Bloody Flag Move is Sleazy and Unethical; (2015) - The Burning Room; (2015) - Everybody Counts or Nobody Counts; (2016) - The Crossing; (2016) - Lawyers and Police Shifting Sides; (2017) - The Wrong Side of Goodbye and A Famous Holograph Will; (2017) - Bosch - T.V. - Season One and Titus Welliver as Harry Bosch; (2018) - Two Kinds of Truth; (2019) - Dark Sacred Night and A Protest on Connelly's Use of Vigilante Justice; (2020) - The Night Fire