The Drop (A Harry Bosch Novel) [Hardcover]

Michael Connelly (Author)

Book Description

Release date: November 28, 2011 | Series: A Harry Bosch Novel

Harry Bosch has been given three years before he must retire from the LAPD, and he wants cases more fiercely than ever. In one morning, he gets two.

DNA from a 1989 rape and murder matches a 29-year-old convicted rapist. Was he an eight-year-old killer or has something gone terribly wrong in the new Regional Crime Lab? The latter possibility could compromise all of the lab's DNA cases currently in court.

Then Bosch and his partner are called to a death scene fraught with internal politics. Councilman Irvin Irving's son jumped or was pushed from a window at the Chateau Marmont. Irving, Bosch's longtime nemesis, has demanded that Harry handle the investigation.

Relentlessly pursuing both cases, Bosch makes two chilling discoveries: a killer operating unknown in the city for as many as three decades, and a political conspiracy that goes back into the dark history of the police department.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best Books of the Month, December 2011: With his retirement looming, LAPD's Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch takes on two seemingly unrelated cases. The first is a botched DNA test from a 1989 rape and murder, which has been pinned on a convicted rapist who was only eight years old at the time of the crime. Harry's pursuit of that case is interrupted by the apparent suicide of a councilman's son. A former police chief and no fan of Harry's, the councilman insists that Harry investigate his son's death. In pursuit of the truth, and an elusive killer, Bosch and his partner uncover secrets and a political conspiracy deep within the police department. Connelly's aging hero is a flawed, haunted, and unforgettable character; his creator is a master craftsman. --Neal Thompson

Review

PRAISE FOR THE REVERSAL:

"Each of his books is so much more than the sum of its parts....Connelly writes true-to-life fiction about true crime. What makes his crme stories ring true is that they're never really over." (Janet Maslin, New York Times )

"Thank God for Michael Connelly....Connelly retains his journalistic gifts; his eye for detail is spot on....Taken together, his 22 novels form an indispensible, compelling chronicle of L.A." (Jonathan Shapiro, Los Angeles Times )

"Mr. Connelly, a former journalist, is a master of mixing realistic details of police work and courtroom procedure with the private feelings and personal lives of his protagonists, and of building suspense even as he evokes the somber poetry inherent in battling the dark side." (Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal )

"Another of Connelly's brilliant Los Angeles crime novels." (Les Roberts, Cleveland Plain Dealer )

"Connelly's prose is so smooth that it looks easy....The product of a master fully in command of his craft." (Robin Vidimos, Denver Post )

"Connelly knows his way around a police investigation, and he knows his way around a courtroom. This knowledge makes his stories believable while his writing skills make them come alive....An exciting writer and one we love to read." (Jackie K. Cooper, Huffington Post )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 388 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1 edition (November 28, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9780316069410
• ISBN-13: 978-0316069410
• ASIN: 0316069418
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.2 x 9.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (620 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #38,812 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michael Connelly decided to become a writer after discovering the books of Raymond Chandler while attending the University of Florida. Once he decided on this direction he chose a major in journalism and a minor in creative writing ' a curriculum in which one of his teachers was novelist Harry Crews.

After graduating in 1980, Connelly worked at newspapers in Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, primarily specializing in the crime beat. In Fort Lauderdale he wrote about police and crime during the height of the murder and violence wave that rolled over South Florida during the so-called cocaine wars. In 1986, he and two other reporters spent several months interviewing survivors of a major airline crash. They wrote a magazine story on the crash and the survivors which was later short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. The magazine story also moved Connelly into the upper levels of journalism, landing him a job as a crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times, one of the largest papers in the country, and bringing him to the city of which his literary hero, Chandler, had written.

After three years on the crime beat in L.A., Connelly began writing his first novel to feature LAPD Detective Hieronymus Bosch. The novel, The Black Echo, based in part on a true crime that had occurred in Los Angeles , was published in 1992 and won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel by the Mystery Writers of America. Connelly has followed that up with 18 more novels. His books have been translated into 31 languages and have won the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, Shamus, Dilys, Nero, Barry, Audie, Ridley, Maltese Falcon (Japan), .38 Caliber (France), Grand Prix (France), and Premio Bancarella (Italy) awards.

Michael lives with his family in Florida.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

(What's this?)

#38 Overall (See top 100 authors)

#3 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Police Procedurals

#6 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Police Procedurals

#10 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Thrillers

#11 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers

#11 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers

#3 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Police Procedurals

#6 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Police Procedurals

#10 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Thrillers

#11 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers

#11 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

253 of 279 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A fantastic continuation in the Hieronymous Bosch series. October 27, 2011

By Wayne Robinson

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I started reading the latest Harry Bosch book last night. Finished it this morning, it's so enthralling.

The novel deals with two cases. Harry Boschs' nemesis Irvin Irving, ex-deputy police chief and city councillor, requests Harry Bosch to investigate the death of his son, George Irving, who apparently committed suicide by jumping from the seventh floor suite of a Hollywood hotel.

The other case resulted from a cold case discovery of DNA in a blood smear on the neck of a rape-murder victim shown to originate from a sex offender who was just 8 years old at the time.

The title 'the Drop' could be referring to the apparent suicide. It could also refer to 'DROP', 'Deferred Retirement Option Plan', which is the reason why Harry Bosch had returned to the LAPD to the Open-Unsolved Unit. The novel opens with Harry Bosch being told he had a 4 year extension of his second and final contract, meaning that he'd be permanently retired in 39 months time (Michael Connelly has indicated that that will be the end of the Bosch series), so that leaves plenty of time for further novels in the series.

I can hardly wait...

96 of 105 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Please Don't Let Harry Retire! November 3, 2011

By Michael A. Newman VINE™ VOICE

Format:Kindle Edition

This is another excellent book about Harry Bosch, my favorite LAPD homicide investigator. The title of the book may throw the reader off though.
The DROP in this book refers to the Deferred Retirement Option Program of the LAPD. Harry is still working in the Unsolved Cases unit and is at the mandatory retirement age and had put in for a DROP. Through it is not the focal point of the story, it does tie in to Harry's mindset throughout the book.

Harry and his partner Chu get assigned to a cold case of a woman who was murdered several years prior. The DNA evidence on the case points to Clayton, Pell a convicted sex-offender. This would be a slam dunk except that when the crime happened, Pell was only eight years old.

Before Harry can investigate further he is told from the people upstairs (his former partner Kiz Rider) that he must drop everything and devote his entire effort to investigating the apparent suicide of a councilman's son. This brings up an issue for Harry. Firstly, he does not like the councilman at all and is anxious to investigate the other case. He is told that the councilman's son is crucial because the councilman is responsible for department budget cuts and handling this case could help the LAPD get some of their funding back.

Of course Harry will do things his way and will find ways to bypass instructions and work on both cases at once. At times through the book Harry's actions will alienate those around him, especially his partner Chu and his new love interest (a social worker helping Clayton Pell). The book never gets boring and Harry's relentless and methodical pursuit to get to the truth is prevalent throughout. Even his daughter Madeline seems to pitch in for some good advice and could play a bigger role in future books to come.

I give the book four stars and would have rated it higher except that I felt a little uncomfortable with Harry pursuing a relationship with the social worker for Clayton Pell.

62 of 67 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Yet Another Disappointment January 25, 2012

By mike

Format:Hardcover

Michael Connelly used to be among my favorite writers in this genre. His earliest novels (Concrete Blonde, Trunk Music, etc.) really started me down the path of being a voracious consumer of mystery fiction. Unfortunately, he continues his downward trajectory with 'The Drop', and I think that's the last one I'll waste my time reading. He's apparently content to rest on his laurels, act as a lazy professor emeritus of the genre, and write gushing blurbs about other writers' books (which I don't trust).

This book brings the laziness to a new level. Connelly combines what appears to be 2 longer short stories into a single novel. In 'The Drop', 2 cases are assigned to Harry Bosch almost simultaneously, and he solves both of them in pretty short order. Of course, there's really no connection between them, so having them in the same book really doesn't work, except for 'padding' purposes.

What does work in the book is that the story lines for both cases are interesting and probably could have been developed into standalone novels by an author who was interested in doing a little work. The procedural stuff seems to be pretty solid, and the conclusions to both crimes are logical. What doesn't work?

- A great character, Harry Bosch, is wasted. Really no background is explained, nothing in his rich past in the series is mined to make the novel more interesting and to help the reader understand his motives.
- The dialogue is wooden. What used to be a strength for Connelly is no longer there.
- The 2 cases just didn't have synergy. There was no reason for them to be in the same book.
- The writing was pedestrian, with absolutely nothing to recommend it.

Anyone starting to read Connelly with this book ought to ask 'what's the big deal with this guy?'. Anyone wanting to start reading him should begin in the beginning and go back to his earliest novels.