Saturday, December 15, 2018

Michael Connolly's Dark Sacred Night.

She was simply staring into the pass, the never-ending movement of vehicles down on the freeway like blood through the veins of the city.
--Michael Connolly, Dark Sacred Night (Little, Brown and Company, 2018).

"Night" in Connolly's title seems to suggest two meanings, the night shift on which Rene Ballard works and the "knight" that Harry Bosch is, in his search for killers in cases that have gone cold.  Bosch even rescues a "maiden," a woman who has taken to drink and drugs after her daughter Daisy had been killed nine years ago.  To some extent policeman Bosch, now exiled to San Fernando, is passing the torch to thirty-years-younger Ballard at LAPD; each has much to learn from the other and they even rescue one another from death.  Ballard and Bosch are both dedicated to their jobs, as Bosch's daughter is in college and Ballard is devoted to her dog and the beach.

After thirty-five books (four of which I have mentioned previously) Connolly has the same intense feeling for 21st century Los Angeles that Raymond Chandler had for mid-20th century LA; plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.  Phillip Marlowe operated alone and so do Ballard and Bosch, albeit with some technical help from the police department, while ignoring authority and being driven by a search for truth.

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