Michael Connelly's The Black Box

1992... and  large parts of Los Angeles are burning amidst the fallout of the Rodney King trial - the police stretched to capacity as the city's population reacts to the acquittal of police-officers accused of beating King, this despite being caught on camera doing so.  Harry Bosch and his partner are rushing from scene to scene of the more significant incidents, collecting what evidence they can. It's a sad truth that the chaos around them and the scale of the disturbances mean most of these cases will never be solved. One of their calls is the killing of a foreign photographer, found dead in an alleyway, her camera gone and no sign of her assailant. Despite Bosch and his partner being accompanied by the military- brought in to keep order - they don't have the time or resources to solve the case. Especially one that appears to be an opportune mugging.

Twenty years later and Bosch is about to get a second chance thanks to the wonders of DNA found on a shell-casing from the alley.  Now working in the Open / Unsolved Unit, Bosch begins to look at the case through a fresh lens and finds some surprising connections to a conflict thousands of miles away. It starts to look less and less like a random act of violence and more as if there was another, carefully planned reason for her demise, one that has been covered up for decades. But after so long - and with internal politics trying to influence his every move - will Harry be able to navigate not only the evidence and the truth of what happened, but the machinations of people actively eager to see him fail? Harry must find the answer that pulls everything together - that element or metaphorical 'black box' that explains it all.

Connelly's books are always solid, notable reads. He's crafted several complex, fallible and dynamic characters who inhabit the fringes of the same procedural universe and has fleshed them out in a way where we genuinely want to know where they go next. That being said, it's possible to tell when a novel is carefully maintaining the status quo for its characters, spotlighting what makes them tick, rather than pushing a bigger, longer narrative forward.

The Bosch books have been a delight to read, watching a detective face not just bad guys and a difficult private life but the possibility of looming retirement from a job at which they excel. In books like his Hong-Kong based 9 Dragons there was the feeling of Connelly penning that particular story in order to re-orgainse his chess pieces, ready for another offensive down the line. In that sense, The Black Box  - released, quite co-incidentally, just months after King's death this summer - is perhaps not a 'pivotal' piece; it's one typically complex journey through which we track Bosch's dogged investigation rather than one where things change dramatically by the outcome.  It's not that there aren't consequences, nor any reason to not thoroughly enjoy the story, but it feels self-contained and interesting, putting a character through his paces rather than essential or ground-breaking to long-term fans. Its quality, advantages and benchmark are that it is a story that a first-timer could pick up and not feel too weighed down by over a decade of continuity or baggage, though long-term fans may feel they are on familiar if compelling territory. That's not such a problem when the territory has Connelly as its personal cartographer and guide.

News that there are evolving plans to bring Bosch to the tv screen should be welcomed and it's easy to see from The Black Box why Bosch and Connelly both remain favourites of the discerning crime-fiction fan.  A Connelly release is always good news and his fans will devour this new release, out in the UK this month, closely timed with the US debut. Combined with the news of a series of special e-book short stories revolving around the character also hitting e-shelves ( and that we'll also be reviewing soon) there's probably never been a better time to enter the Connellyverse...

8/10

The Black Box, published by Orion Books is out 22nd November. (£18.99 Hardback edition).