Nine Dragons by Michael Connelly

Readers of the old blog, Only a Blockhead, will know that I've been making my way through the never ending, and I think still growing, series of crime novels by Michael Connelly featuring Detective Harry Bosch. I'm glad that there is no end in sight, because though one would think an author would be getting stale by the fourteenth entry in a series, Nine Dragons seems to me one of the best so far. One is aware of Connelly's efforts to keep things fresh—the hard-bitten LA cop visits Hong Kong in this volume, and a major recurring character dies—but one doesn't object because his efforts are successful, not desperate.

 The detective, Harry Bosch, is aging in real time. There are several novels in the series after this one, and apparently Bosch is in his seventies in the later volumes. It'll be nice to see, when I get that far, what a geriatric and presumably retired LA cop gets up to

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