A Darkness More than Night, by Michael Connelly

Terry McCaleb is a retired criminal profiler who's tempted back to work on a particularly peculiar case: a murderer has been found dead, with their body posed in a style reminiscent of a scene from a Heironymus Bosch painting. And Harry (real name Heironymus) Bosch is a detective who just happens to have shown an interest in the victim, after failing to secure a conviction for the prior murder.

Pretty good stuff: while Bosch is being investigated by McCaleb, he's also testifying in a trial of a Hollywood producer who's charged with a nasty murder, and the court scenes here are pretty good: the story of the Hollywood murder unfolds very nicely in as the different witnesses are put on the stand. Interspersed with the trial sections are the efforts of McCaleb to work out what's going on with the wierd murder: he's previously worked with Detective Bosch, and although the evidence all points to Bosch as the killer, McCaleb's nagging doubts grow as the case develops.

It is never really in doubt (to this reader anyway) that Detective Bosch isn't guilty, but it's interesting to see how the story works, and up until nearly the end (where the end-game, with the killer coming after McCaleb, seems a bit corny) it was a great read.

Will look out for more by this author.

Completed : 26-Mar-2008

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