Customer Reviews

BLOOD WORK

5 star:		(101)
4 star:		(73)
3 star:		(21)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Terry McCaleb, ex-FBI profiler and serial killer point man in Los Angeles, is spending his days recuperating after a heart transplant by restoring the boat he lives on. Life consists of long daily walks, checking vital signs and taking anti-rejection medications. That is, until he looks up one day to see Graciela Rivers coming aboard with a request. She's read about his career and new heart in the paper and wants him to privately take on the murder case of her sister, Glory, who was shot in the head and killed during a convenience store robbery. At first, McCaleb says no, he's not in the business anymore, doesn't need the stress and has to take care of himself. But when she reveals that his new heart belonged to Glory, she was an organ donor, he rethinks his answer and decides to look into the case. As he starts to look at the LAPD paperwork and crime scene tape, one thing becomes very clear, things are not as they seem. The detectives working the case, missed some important clues and it appears that Glory wasn't just at the wrong place at the wrong time, but the actual target. And as McCaleb digs deeper, he knows his new heart will never rest easy, unless he solves the crime and finds the killer..... Michael Connelly has done it again. He's written a great mystery/thriller with enough twists, turns and false starts to keep you turning pages to the very end. This is a book that has it all...a great, fast paced, suspenseful plot, well drawn, original characters and riveting scenes that come alive on the page. This is a novel you'll definitely want to read in one sitting. So turn off the phone and lock the door, Blood Work is about to keep you up all night!

I have enjoyed all the Michael Connelly books I've read lately, and Blood Work is even better than I have come to expect. While this isn't part of Connelly's Harry Bosch series, the protagonist, Terry McCaleb, has appeared in other books (including a Bosch).

Terry McCaleb is a retired FBI agent whose specialty was criminal profiling. His retirement was brought on when his heart was attacked by a virus, and he eventually had a heart transplant two years later. McCaleb is a mere two months past surgery and still recovering when a beautiful woman shows up on his boat. Graciela Rivers is seeking his help. Her sister was brutally murdered in a convenience store robbery. The LAPD are not much interested and think it was a random shooting. He begs off, saying that he can't physically perform an investigation. He can't even drive for another seven months. But then Graciela plays her trump card: McCaleb received her sister's heart. McCaleb reluctantly decides to look into the case, and finds himself pitted against the LAPD and the FBI. McCaleb also discovers that this isn't a random shooting and that the killer is in fact a serial killer.

In solving the crime, McCaleb also learns a lot about himself. He discovers that he misses the chase and the work. He's still got it despite his physical limitations. This case also helps to heal more than his heart.

Connelly is so convincing because he writes like a cop (thanks to his years as a crime reporter). Suspects are "in the wind" (they have disappeared without a trace). Or McCaleb does the "hard tango" with other officers to get information (when they aren't willing to share). Last summer I was on a James Lee Burke kick (Dave Robicheaux) and Connelly is also a fan. It was fun to find McCaleb wearing a Robicheaux Dock and Baitshop t-shirt in one chapter.

For any Connelly fan or even a lover of mysteries, it doesn't get much better than Blood Work.

This was the first Michael Connolly book I read, and because of it I have since bought five others. The plot is engaging from the very start. Ex-FBI agent Terry McCaleb, whose speciality was profiling serial killers, has retired from the Bureau after a heart transplant and is living on his boat in LA harbour. Having turned his back on fighting crime, he has no intentions of helping Graciela Rivers, a woman whose sister has been murdered, until he finds out that the transplanted heart that saved his life belonged to her. With this knowledge, he feels obliged to investigate Gloria's death, against the express wishes of his doctor and knowing it could have serious consequences for his health.

All McCaleb has to go on is a video tape from a convenience store showing a masked man hold up the owner and then shoot the two witnesses. Add to this the hostility he receives from the two LAPD detectives assigned the case, and it seems like McCaleb isn't going to get far. However, it soon becomes clear that the crime is not as random as it seems, and McCaleb is on the trail of someone a lot more sinister than an opportunistic thief.

Connolly writes "Blood Work" with an unrelenting pace and a real flair for knowing exactly how to string the reader along. You'll be as hooked as one of the fish in the harbour!

I don't write these reviews often, but this book impressed me so much that I had to put in a few good words for it.

I have read several of Connelly's Harry Bosch novels and had enjoyed them very much, but this one stands out from the rest.

Why? First of all, Terry McCaleb is the hero of this. An ex-FBI serial killer specialist, he has a newly transplanted heart in him as the book opens. He isn't the classic pulp hero, and it makes life interesting.

Second, and I won't ruin the plot by saying anything, this is extremely intelligent, a creation of lots of good reporting and crafting of a great plot. Connelly, a former LA Times reporter, shows his background when he weavees together a plot that is fascinating, believable, and full of surprises. This is among the best constructed mysteries I've ever read.

So do yourself a favor and spend the few bucks -- or few cents -- it takes to purchase this book. You'll be intrigued and amazed by it.

Terry McCaleb is a retired FBI Agent. His departure from the Bureau was forced. He needed a heart transplant. Having given up any hope of being saved because of his rare blood type, he has resigned himself to dying. Then, at the last moment, a heart became available. All of this happens before "Blood Work" begins.

Having become a minor celebrity due to a pair of newspaper articles, Terry has turned down several requests by people to solve crimes on their behalf. Then Graciella Rivers tells him he has to solve the murder of her sister, Gloria. When he asks why, she tells him that he has Gloria's heart.

"Blood Work" provides a fascinating study into how a professional works a murder case. Picking up where the police left off, and incurring their wrath in the process, Terry develops new leads, makes use of old evidence, and soon is on the trail of Gloria's killer. However, in a strange plot twist, Terry realizes that someone killed Gloria for one of her organs, making him a prime suspect.

At this point, the plot could have turned in on itself and lost its way. Other writers would have left us with a very smart Terry up against a very stupid everyone else. However, Connelly provides plot twist after plot twist until the surprise revelation of the killer's identity. Even then, he's not finished with the story or Terry's search for justice.

As a former resident of Los Angeles, I enjoyed reliving visits to various places around that city. As a reader of fiction, I appreciated a well-written, intelligent thriller.

Michael Collins is a crackerjack author who conjures up chilling plots. A former Los Angeles Times police reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist he knows of what he writes, as is evidence in his six previous novels featuring rebellious LAPD detective Harry Bosch. Now, in Blood Work, his latest get-a-grip-on-your-armchair thriller Mr. Connelly introduces us to Terry McCaleb, a tough, vengeance driven FBI agent whose stress induced heart condition forces him into early retirement.

While still active McCaleb captained investigations of serial murders in the Los Angeles area, he "carried with him a bottomless reservoir of rage for the men he hunted....he wanted them to pay for the horrible manifestations of their fantasies. Blood debts had to be paid in blood. That was why in the bureau's serial killer unit the agents called what they did `blood work.'"

But after being sidelined by a heart transplant, this seems to be all in his past. He spends his days recuperating, living quietly on a fishing boat in Los Angeles harbor, hoping some day to return to his hometown on Catalina Island.

His hitherto unknown placid existence is interrupted by an unexpected visit from Graciela Rivers, an attractive nurse who informs him that her sister has been wantonly murdered and he is the recipient of the slain woman's heart. Graciela asks McCaleb to help solve the case.

Again believing that debts must be paid, McCaleb ignores doctor's orders and his own better judgment to track someone he initially concludes is a random killer. Far from being a random shooter, the murderer is a crafty psychopath. McCaleb first connects the woman's murder to another slaying, and then follows a danger strewn path to an astounding conclusion that pits him against the ultimate atrocity: "He now knew that the evil of these two killings came together in the form of a person who killed not for money, not out of fear and not for revenge against his victims. This evil went far beyond that. This person killed for pleasure and to fulfill a fantasy that burned like a virus inside his brain."

Mr. Connelly is not only a careful, clever plot master, he is also a classy writer, lifting the thriller genre to new levels. No stretches of the imagination here - everything falls neatly into place as the pace accelerates, finally rushing to explode in a shocking finish. While Mr. Connelly already has a healthy coterie of devoted fans, he's bound to win more with this masterful tale of suspense, a story so real that it brings heinous crime shiveringly close to home.

I started reading Michael Connelly about 3 months ago and have made my way chronologically through his books to Blood Work. This is my least favorite book of the 7 Connelly books I've read so far. He introduces a new main character, Terry McCaleb, who is a former FBI agent that specialized in serial killings. McCaleb is on permanent hiatus due to a recent heart transplant. The sister of his heart donor discovers his identity (and prior profession) and asks for his help in solving her sister's murder. McCaleb takes on the challenge much to his doctor's displeasure.

Blood Works starts out a little slow and then picks up nicely about midway at which point I had trouble putting it down. It only rates 3 stars with me because Connelly never really made McCaleb feel like a real person...not the way he does with Harry Bosch (the main character in the majority of his books). Also, the romantic angle was a little too unbelievable. And, although the plot had its share of twists and turns, things worked out just a little too easily. Plus, there were some loose ends left behind...not typical of Connelly.

"Blood Work" (1998), is, I believe, the seventh novel published by the bestselling, outstanding American mystery author Michael Connelly. It is a standalone mystery, of superior quality, that follows six of his earliest and greatest, including his other riveting standalone, The Poet. Connelly is, of course, widely known for his bestselling Harry Bosch series of mystery novels. That series, Los Angeles-set police procedurals, looks at life on the "noir" side; Connelly is a former journalist, a crime beat writer for the Los Angeles Times, who certainly earned his spurs in murder while earning his daily bread.

The book at hand, which is extraordinarily cunning and well-made, is, like most of the author's work, set in Los Angeles. Terrell (Terry) McCaleb, retired FBI agent, used to call his work with the agency "blood work." It consisted of heading all investigations of serial murders in the LA area. Then a heart condition forced him into early retirement. Now, post heart transplant, he is living quietly on his boat The Following Sea, moored in the LA harbor, doing a lot of fishing and slowly trying to fix it up so that he can bring it back to his hometown on Catalina Island. (The boat was inherited from his father, who also named it.) But the former detective's calm seas turn choppy when an LA Times story brings Graciela Rivers, a beautiful nurse, to his boat, to tell him the story of her sister's unsolved recent murder. And, before you know it, McCaleb agrees to take up the case, against doctor's orders and his own better judgment.

You will find some of Connelly's most beautiful, resonant writing in this book. He explains the meaning of The Following Sea thus:

"There is something known as the following sea, or a following sea....A sea is a wave. You know how you hear on surf reports that the seas are two to four feet or whatever?...Okay, well a following sea is the one you have to watch out for. It's the one that comes up behind a vessel. You don't see it coming. It hits you from behind and swamps you. Sinks you. The rule is that if you're running in following seas, you've just got to be moving faster than they are. Stay ahead of them. He named the boat that because it was like a reminder. You know, always watch over your shoulder. It was something he always said to me when I was growing up."

Or the writer tells us his dual meaning for "blood work." Most of us know; have been forced to know, that it means various tests done on blood withdrawn from our veins. But Connelly says:

"When he [McCaleb] was an agent, he had carried with him a bottomless reservoir of rage for the men he hunted. He had seen firsthand what they had done and he wanted them to pay for the horrible manifestations of their fantasies. Blood debts had to be paid in blood. That was why in the bureau's serial killer unit the agents called what they did `blood work.'"

The book also has Connelly's usual excellent narrative and descriptive writing, and snappy dialogue, and is informed by his deep, accurate knowledge of police work. The writer explicates his love of jazz as he goes. He writes with great knowledge of, and love for, Los Angeles, his adopted home town: You could pretty much use his works instead of a road map. And it, too, clearly follows in the footsteps of earlier outstanding hardboiled Los Angeles authors Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald, but add the further ingredients of a police procedural.

At one point, we are told that the protagonist detective is looking for the "telling detail," in order to figure out the gnarly plot with which he is presented: Connelly has repeatedly said, in his public appearances and non-fiction work, that he considers the nosing out of the telling detail to be the most important job of the journalist and the novelist.

In the book, we again meet some of Connelly's favorite characters: some we have met before; some we will surely meet again, and some we have both met before and will meet again. The author also sneaks some of the favorite ploys he used in his earlier books into its pages. He mentions the LA-famous father and son defense lawyers, Mickey Haller, Sr. and Jr. Keisha Russell, Crime Reporter at the Los Angeles Times. The Poet, malefactor of the book that bears the same name, THE POET. Connelly calls out Clint Eastwood, who, we will know, made a movie of this book, under the same title, Blood Work. (A good film, though I'm not crazy about some of the changes Eastwood made). And, of course, the characters in this book discuss the possibilities of making a movie of this book. And then there is FBI Agent Rachel Walling. At one point, early in this book's pages, our protagonist tells a curious cab driver that he, the detective, is no one. This phrase will come back to haunt our former FBI agent. The writer even manages to sneak in an homage to James Lee Burke: at one point, his protagonist, is wearing a "Robicheaux Dock and Bait Shop" t-shirt.

Connelly is a wonderful writer, my favorite among American mystery authors, and I've read all his books save The Scarecrow, and his most recent, The Reversal. (Like many other readers, I imagine, I generally prefer his series works to his standalones: like many other writers, his mysteries seem more powerful if they are filtered through the sensibilities of his detective protagonist.) However, his recent standalones, SCARECROW, The Brass Verdict: A Novel (Harry Bosch), and The Lincoln Lawyer, have all been #1 New York Times Bestsellers. Crime Beat: A Decade of Covering Cops and Killers, his collected non-fiction journalism, was also a New York Times bestseller, as most of his previous standalones have been, too. Obviously, a lot of readers go for his work in any shape or form, and the man always rewards the reading.

Blood work by Michael Connelly Little Brown 1998

Retired FBI profiler Terry McCaleb has just received a heart transplant and is slowly recovering when Graciela Rivers steps onto his boat and asks him to find her sister's murderer. Only when Terry discovers that Graciela's sister is Gloria Torres, the donor of his new heart, does he find himself inexorably drawn in to the search for Gloria's murderer. The investigation is at a standstill until Terry ties Gloria's murder to another local murder and through meticulous searching to a third murder committed with the same gun. Puzzled by the coincidences in these three cases McCaleb again goes over the police reports and videos again and again until he stumbles on the thread that ties all three murders together and also staggeringly, to him.

Meanwhile Terry finds himself drawn to Graciela and her dead sister's son, 6 year-old Raymond and feels himself opening up to feelings that he have been dormant for many years. When Graciela and Raymond are kidnaped and held hostage Terry's search leads him to abandon all reasonable care for himself and his new heart and finally track down this cold blooded murder.

This is and amazingly well written book chock full of information on heart transplant care and the psychological abyss facing the transplant recipient. Terry McCaleb is a very sympathetic protagonist and the characters of Graciela and Jaye Winston, his policewoman accomplice are well drawn with a good sense of reality. This is the first mystery I have read in quite a while that leaves me with a sense of satisfaction and enjoyment. I recommend it to all mystery fans.

REALLY enjoyed this book after seeing it as a runner-up for the 1999 Edgar award.... It had suspense, a great read on psychological profiling, enough clues to keep me ALMOST up to the hero. But then comes the little twists and turns that can make a good book into a much better read. The author reminded me quite a bit of Richard Thomas (Silence of the lambs(, without as much gore. Can hardly wait to buy more of Michael Connely to see if this was a one time thing.