The Black Echo: Harry Bosch Series, Book 1

As each card is turned over, the reader is left thinking, “I should have seen that coming.” But you don’t.

The Black Echo by Michael Connelly introduces readers to Los Angeles Police Department homicide detective Harry Bosch. When he’s called to the scene of an apparent overdose in a drainpipe near the reservoir, he realizes the body is that of someone he knows from Vietnam. Additionally, he is experiencing post traumatic stress disorder and encountering departmental and interagency politics.Harry is methodical, superstitious, rumpled, and doesn’t believe in coincidences. He likes order, is a loner, and accepts violence as a part of his day-to-day life. The other characters have a variety of depths appropriate to their roles and most are memorable.This didn’t feel like it should be the first book in the series. It refers to previous cases that has Harry in the role that he is in now. Despite this, it is a well-paced novel with plenty of action and a man facing a choice between justice and vengeance as he faces memories of actions taken twenty years ago. Harry experiences anger, sadness, war memories, rage, and a feeling of emptiness. It was interesting to go back to a time when people still used pagers, pay telephones, typewriters, and shared computers. One quibble that I had was that the book had multiple long parts instead of chapters.Overall, this is a book that kept me turning the pages to see what would happen next. It was intriguing and gripped me from beginning to end. This was a good start to the series.I purchased a copy of this novel. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. Publication date January 21, 1992.

What can I say, Harry Bosch you know its a good read.

Another great Bosch book! You never quite know where Harry will wind up. Always a good read. Way to go Harry!

Love the novel, but there's 60 pages in the middle of this book that for some reason are printed in a different font and it really messed with my eyes for some reason.

Michael Connelly's hero, Hieronymus (Harry) Bosch is introduced in The Black Echo where he has recently been demoted and moved to Hollywood Division because of a scandal caused when he shot a murderer who reached under his pillow to get what Harry believed to be a gun, but was actually a toupee. Internal Affairs, with the help of Irvin Irving, the big boss, who hates Harry, pushed the demotion through and Harry is perennially in trouble no matter what he does to redeem himself.The story begins when Bosch is called to the scene of a dead body discovered in a large pipe near the Mulholland Dam. A street kid witnesses the dump and calls Homicide. When Harry arrives, he finds he knows the victim, Billy Meadows, from his Vietnam days where they were both tunnel rats. Even though it looks like a heroin overdose, Harry finds discrepancies in the overdose theory, and against the wishes of everyone at the scene and his bosses, insists that it be processed as a homicide. His partner, Jerry Edgar, who does only the bare minimum and is usually busy with his real estate business, isn't really willing to help much, since he has an open house that he is hosting, so once again Bosch is unpopular. As the story unfolds, Bosch finds the kid who called in the body and also discovers a pawn ticket in Meadows' apartment that ties him to a bank vault robbery that occurred almost a year prior. Bosch calls the FBI and is paired up with Eleanor Wish; beautiful, of course, and very willing to sleep with Harry. Eleanor's boss doesn't like Harry nosing into an FBI case, but is forced to let Harry and Eleanor work on it. At the same time, Irving keeps two Internal Affairs officers on Harry to find a way to get him fired.During the course of the novel, Harry and Eleanor come close to being killed in a hit and run, are involved in several shootouts, and are generally in danger throughout the entire book. Of course there is corruption inside the police departments and federal agencies, which causes additional problems for Bosch. Bosch, however, is a very accomplished and meticulous detective, and finds clues that the FBI missed in the months prior to him being assigned to the case. He believes "There are no coincidences," which, with that point of view, helps him think outside the box and resolve the problems.Michael Connelly is a gifted writer, as he is able to weave several scenarios together in an exciting and believable story. Although there are other murders and shootouts, they are not overly graphic or violent. The Black Echo is a fun, fast read, and Connelly's characterizations of the main players makes them seem like real people in real situations. Bosch is not a team player, and has very strong feelings for the victims, which sets him apart from his colleagues and bosses. He is a hero who is likeable, albeit difficult; he chain smokes and drinks to excess, is a real loner, and loves jazz. It is recommended that this book be read first, as an introduction to the subsequent Harry Bosch novels.This book was purchased with personal funds and no promotion of the book was solicited by the author or publisher.

I'm actually reading the Bosch series for the second time. Harry Bosch is my hero, and his flaws just makes that more so.

Good story but there were plot holes. Mr. Connelly also needs someone who knows firearms to read over the manuscript. No modern guns use clips, they use magazines. That’s just one mistake.

. . . Harry Bosch, an LA detective with probably more enemies than friends on the job, and a guy who’s pretty much a loner away from it.The Black Echo was Michael Connelly’s debut Bosch crime thriller which, published in ‘92, pre-dates the Prime TV series by more than two decades. In that span of time he added Jack McEvoy (The Poet/‘96), Terrell McCaleb (Blood Work/‘98), and Mickey Haller (The Lincoln Lawyer/‘05) as characters in his impressive string of titles. (The Late Show/’17, marked Renee Ballard’s introductory appearance).But “Echo” set the stage for everything and everyone that followed, and it was a great beginning. Connelly made clear from the start that Bosch was a cop who thought outside the box and pretty much worked the same way. And also quite obvious was that while attempts to control, hinder, or halt him in his pursuit of the ‘bad guy’ might slow his drive they would almost certainly fail (the “dog with a bone” analogy).The Bosch legacy begins with his investigation into the death of a fellow Vietnam vet that he identifies very quickly as a murder while others are eager to chalk it up as just another junkie over-dose. The story spirals upward into much more: dirty money laundered into a massive cache of diamonds and precious stones stored in a secretive but highly visible bank vault that blows up, literally, in Bosch’s face. And although his past experiences as a Vietnam “tunnel rat” are ones he’s wished to forget, it’s those traumatic memories that eventually ‘save the day’.It’s a great story that established Connelly as a master of the crime fiction genre. And although I suppose his books can be read in any order, starting with “Echo” and following the series as it progresses does pay benefits i.e., meeting his new protagonists as they make their first appearance eliminates some of the “where the hell did he/she come from?” confusion that may crop up.Now, after 30 years of reading and enjoying Connelly's books, I've decided to undertake the task of reviewing most of his titles (this lead me to discover that my library was actually missing two of them - since rectified - and his latest due out this November, has been pre-ordered). Maybe my efforts will help introduce another new reader or two to this masterful storyteller, but regardless it will be a fun trip down memory lane.

Have to honest the TV series brought me to this but was surprised how good and how much I enjoyed this book . A great plot , some great characters and for a first book I thought it was really well written, which is great for the rest of the series

Brand new

Una novela de detectives bien escrita. Muy recomendable.

Super!!Negativt existerar inte!