A Darkness More Than Night (Hardcover)

by Michael Connelly (Author) "Someone's coming." Terry McCaleb looked at his wife and then followed her eyes down to the winding road below..." (more)
Key Phrases: darkness more than night, plastic owl, autoerotic asphyxia, David Storey, Detective Bosch, Harry Bosch (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
When a sheriff's detective shows up on former FBI man Terry McCaleb's Catalina Island doorstep and requests his help in analyzing photographs of a crime scene, McCaleb at first demurs. He's newly married (to Graciela, who herself dragged him from retirement into a case in Blood Work), has a new baby daughter, and is finally strong again after a heart transplant. But once a bloodhound, always a bloodhound. One look at the video of Edward Gunn's trussed and strangled body puts McCaleb back on the investigative trail, hooked by two details: the small statue of an owl that watches over the murder scene and the Latin words "Cave Cave Dus Videt," meaning "Beware, beware, God sees," on the tape binding the victim's mouth.

Gunn was a small-time criminal who had been questioned repeatedly by LAPD Detective Harry Bosch in the unsolved murder of a prostitute, most recently on the night he was killed. McCaleb knows the tense, cranky Bosch (Michael Connelly's series star--see The Black Echo, The Black Ice, et al.) and decides to start by talking to him. But Bosch has time only for a brief chat. He's a prosecution witness in the high-profile trial of David Storey, a film director accused of killing a young actress during rough sex. By chance, however, McCaleb discovers an abstruse but concrete link between the scene of Gunn's murder and Harry Bosch's name:

"This last guy's work is supposedly replete with owls all over the place. I can't pronounce his first name. It's spelled H-I-E-R-O-N-Y-M-U-S. He was Netherlandish, part of the northern renaissance. I guess owls were big up there."

McCaleb looked at the paper in front of him. The name she had just spelled seemed familiar to him.

"You forgot his last name. What's his last name?"

"Oh, sorry. It's Bosch. Like the spark plugs."

Bosch fits McCaleb's profile of the killer, and McCaleb is both thunderstruck and afraid--thunderstruck that a cop he respects might have committed a horrendous murder and afraid that Bosch may just be good enough to get away with it. And when Bosch finds out (via a mysterious leak to tabloid reporter Jack McEvoy, late of Connelly's The Poet) that he's being investigated for murder, he's furious, knowing that Storey's defense attorney may use the information to help get his extravagantly guilty client off scot-free.

It's the kind of plot that used to make great Westerns: two old gunslingers circling each other warily, each of them wondering if the other's gone bad. But there's more than one black hat in them thar hills, and Connelly masterfully joins the plot lines in a climax and denouement that will leave readers gasping but satisfied. --Barrie Trinkle

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Harry Bosch, the worn, pragmatic Los Angeles police detective, protagonist of a number of Connelly's earlier books, is joined by Terry McCaleb, former FBI crime-scene profiler, introduced in Blood Work (Little, Brown, 1998). Harry is immersed in testifying at the murder trial of a Hollywood film director, Jack Storey. When McCaleb, retired and living a quiet life with a new wife and two young children, is asked by a former colleague to look at the investigation materials of a recent gruesome homicide, he realizes just how much he misses his vocation. Terry alone has noticed some clues from the crime-scene video that point toward the influence of Renaissance painter Hieronymus Bosch. Despite pleas from his wife, Terry is drawn into the investigation and finds, to his dismay, that pointers lead straight to acquaintance Harry Bosch, whose real name is Hieronymus. Certain details in Harry's life fit in well with the profile Terry is developing of a ritualistic killer. The clues stemming from Bosch's paintings may lead readers straight to the Internet to view some of Bosch's well-known works to see the clues for themselves. The plot is intricate, and the twists and turns keep coming, but it is so well done, and the characters are so vivid, that confusion isn't a problem. Despite its length, this involving book is a fast read with "can't put it down" appeal.

Carol DeAngelo, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 418 pages
• Publisher: Little Brown and Company; 1st edition (January 23, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316154075
• ISBN-13: 978-0316154079
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (160 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #217,857 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #85 in

  Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Authors, A-Z > ( C ) > Connelly, Michael

• This is item 7 in The Harry Bosch Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another great Connelly thriller, but . . ., May 28, 2001

By	Douglas A. Greenberg (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Michael Connelly is the BEST mystery-thriller writer working today, so it almost goes without saying that this book stands head and shoulders above most others within this overcrowded genre. In *A Darkness More Than Night*, he demonstrates once again his extraordinary skills in terms of weaving intricate plots filled with twists, turns, and early-innocuous-clues-that-become-pivotal-later-on. He also has developed not just one but two extraordinary protagonists, Harry Bosch and Terrance McCaleb, and their "face-off" in this book adds a fascinating dimension to an already fine work. Connelly also does a wonderful job of creating the *noir*, "there is evil afoot in this world" mood/philosophy that pervades his books. The discussions of Hieronymus Bosch's paintings, the symbolic meanings of owls, etc., are absolutely riveting.

Given that I've bestowed such effusive praise upon this novel, why four stars instead of five? First, it's apparent that the novel will be appreciated far more by readers who have already read not just one or two but ALL of Connelly's previous works. Yes, it's common for mystery writers to write their successive books with an element of "ongoing story" to the work, including occasional references to events and cases described previously. But Connelly employs this practice so heavily in this book that it almost seems futile for any reader to pick up *A Darkness More Than Night* without having gone through at least a few previous Connelly mysteries.

The second reservation I had is one that other reviewers have mentioned, i.e., that although the McCaleb vs. Bosch angle is certainly exciting for all of us who are Connelly devotees, there is a certain implausibility about some aspects of the plot line, particularly in light of McCaleb's own travails in *Blood Work*. Since one gets a clear inkling of where the story is headed, this removes some of the tension associated with how the Gunn case will ultimately be resolved.

Am I being nitpickingly negative here? Perhaps. For a writer as skilled as Michael Connelly, we readers develop extremely high expectations--perhaps excessively high. Overall, this is a wonderful novel that leaves me waiting impatiently for Connelly's next work.

69 of 83 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WHAT A SEDUCTIVE READ! WHAT A BRAVURA PERFORMANCE!, January 16, 2001

By	Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

This review is from: A Darkness More Than Night (Harry Bosch) (Audio Cassette)

It's double trouble and a double treat for fans of mystery master Michael Connelly when he pairs two of his compelling protagonists - LAPD Detective Hieronymus Bosch ( "The Black Ice," "The Concrete Blonde," etc) and Terry McCaleb ("Bloodwork"). The duo serve up surprises and shocks in this tale of murder and mayhem Hollywood-style.

Michael Beck, who has read several of John Grisham's classics, delivers a blockbuster performance in this riveting encounter with a movie director accused of murdering an actress. LA is, of course, agog, clamoring for details.

The trial transfixes as Bosch, who was the arresting officer, is also a star witness. He goes mano a mano with McCaleb who has a different take on the crime.

As the complexly plotted drama unfolds it seems that what may be the conclusion is too outre, too incredible to consider. What a pair of crime busters! What a seductive read! What a bravura performance!

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dark and edgy, but the mystery isn't too hard to figure out, January 30, 2001

By	Tung Yin (Iowa City, IA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"A Darkness More Than Night" (the title comes from a line in a novel by Raymond Chandler, who was Connelly's inspiration for becoming a writer) is Michael Connelly's 10th novel. Six of the first nine star LAPD detective Harry Bosch; one of the other three ("Blood Work") stars Terry McCaleb, a former FBI agent forced into retirement by heart disease necessitating a transplant.

Although Bosch and McCaleb had worked together before, offscreen so to speak, "Darkness" brings them together in the same novel. McCaleb is happily retired from the serial killer profiling business, making a living from chartering fishing trips around Catalina Island in Southern California, when an LA Sheriff's Dept. deputy friend of his comes to him for his help on a strange murder. (In case you are wondering, the Sheriff's Department is a county agency; it polices the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. Crimes within L.A. city limits fall within the jurisdiction of the LAPD.) Against his wife's wishes, McCaleb agrees to take a look. He comes across a clue that the sheriff's deputies missed the first time, and that clue leads him into a whole new area of investigation that eventually points at . . . Harry Bosch.

Some of Connelly's mysteries contain what for me were stunning twists -- "The Concrete Blonde" and "Trunk Music" come to mind. "Darkness," on the other hand, proved to be relatively easy to figure out about 100 pages before the end of the novel. Nevertheless, it's still a gripping read. Most of Connelly's books are dark and edgy, but the darkness and edginess are even more palpable in this book. McCaleb's investigation takes him (and the reader) into a very grim Renaissance age painter, the owl as a symbol of evil, and an unnervingly cocky defendant in a media circus trial.

One of the most interesting things about "Darkness" for readers who've read the Bosch novels is the glimpse of what Bosch comes across like to someone else. The encounters between McCaleb and Bosch -- not the first one, but the ones after that -- are fascinating and point to the difference between the two men: especially Bosch's "avenging angel" nature.

Another interesting thing about this book (and many of Connelly's others) is the way that he weaves in facts and characters from earlier books. Readers of "Void Moon" who wonder what happened to Cassie Black's parole officer (Thelma) find out here. It's just a throwaway paragraph, but it's a nice touch.

In summary, Connelly is a consistently good writer, and "Darkness" doesn't disappoint, even if it telegraphs the solution to the mystery a little too early. It's still satisfying to the end.