The Narrows (Taschenbuch)

Those who are familiar with the audio adaptations of Connelly's books will be delighted to see that Cariou lends his talents to Connelly's latest mystery, which is a sequel to The Poet (1996). At the center of this engrossing thriller is world-weary, retired L.A. homicide detective Harry Bosch. While investigating the death of ex-FBI profiler Terry McCalab, Bosch begins to suspect that the notorious serial killer The Poet, presumed dead, may be the culprit. As he digs deeper, Bosch meets and eventually joins forces with FBI agent Rachel Walling, who went up against The Poet the first time around. The novel's point of view cuts from Bosch's first-person commentary to the third-person perspectives of Walling and The Poet. Cariou handles these changes with professional ease. He gives Bosch a rough voice, raspy with experience, and provides Walling with a younger, but no less tough, intonation. Cariou's vocal dexterity becomes truly apparent, however, when he reads Connelly's descriptive passages. Whether he is illuminating a grisly crime scene, a rainstorm pummeling a Los Angeles freeway or a soft moment between Bosch and his young daughter, Cariou perfectly captures the subtleties of Connelly's tightly written prose.
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*Starred Review* Too often when crime novelists bring together characters from different series or combine plot strands from earlier novels, the results seem awkward (like inviting two separate groups of friends to the same party). Not so with Connelly, whose latest Harry Bosch novel seamlessly intermingles material from the author's previous work. Readers of Connelly's The Poet (1996) have known that Bob Backus, former FBI profiler turned Poe-spouting serial killer, would be back eventually, and here he is, attempting to stage-manage a grand finale. Bosch, now a PI after retiring from the LAPD, becomes involved when the wife of FBI agent Terry McCaleb (Blood Work and A Darkness More Than Night) hires him to determine if her husband's death was suicide or murder. The trail leads quickly to Las Vegas and the resurfaced Backus, who is being tracked by his former FBI colleagues, including his onetime protege Rachel Walling (also from The Poet). Expertly juggling the narrative between Bosch's brooding, hard-boiled voice and a broader third-person perspective that takes in the points of view of Walling and the Poet, Connelly builds tension exponentially through superb use of dramatic irony. A stunning finale in the Narrows--the cement-lined Los Angeles River, which transforms itself during a storm from a harmless puddle into a rampaging death trap--works on multiple levels, satisfying both plot-hungry suspense addicts and character-driven Bosch devotees, who will stick with their hero--he of the "seen-it-all-twice eyes"--on his journey into the metaphorical narrows, where evil "would grab at me like an animal and take me down into the black water." This is Connelly at the top of his game. Bill Ott
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