This John Jordan Prequel Needs Some "Oomph!"

Innocent Blood - Michael Lister

One line from Kurt Vonnegut’s “Welcome to the Monkey House” was running through my head as I read Michael Lister’s Innocent Blood: “The Foxy Grandpa shoehorned himself into the scene…” Never mind that protagonist John Jordan is but a stripling in his late teens instead of a grandpa, Lister still managed to shoehorn the boy into early-‘80s Atlanta, complete with a face-to-face meeting with serial killer Wayne Williams. Give us a break…

The title is the seventh in the John Jordan mystery series – some quick sleuthing reveals that it’s a prequel set well before the first in the series; intended to provide insight into Jordan's formative years. According to reviews of Lister’s other work (all of which have “blood” in the title), Jordan’s a “reluctant detective” type; a minister who keeps having to solve murders. I don’t know that for sure, and I don’t intend to find out… 

Harry Bosch, King of the Cold Cases

The Burning Room - Michael Connelly

With retirement looming just over the horizon, you could probably forgive Harry Bosch for just coasting. That would only prove that you don’t know Harry Bosch! Though there’s less than a year left before he has to leave LAPD’s cold case files unit behind for the last time, Harry hasn’t slowed down a bit. Now partnered with a young hotshot, Lucia “Lucky Lucy” Soto, Bosch has just picked up a new hot-cold case: a murder that took place ten years ago, although the victim just died this week. Lead poisoning, you know…

Long thought to be the result of a gang-style drive-by, the bullet that finally led to the death of Orlando Merced turns out to have been fired from a rifle instead. That changes everything about the way the veteran cop conducts his investigation – and sure enough, a new angle yields a new theory. Bosch and Soto decide to run with it.

But Soto has solving a different cold case in mind, one with a personal connection. Once Bosch finds out her reason, he joins the young woman in her quest. It’s a quest that will ultimately have a different resolution than either one had expected.

Harry Bosch Plays Frantic Father in Michael Connelly's "9 Dragons"

9 Dragons by Michael Connelly

After decades in which Harry Bosch's only concerns seemed to be his trad-jazz collection and sticking bad guys behind bars, his creator apparently decided he needed a more human side. Over a span of several novels, Harry learned he had emotions after all. First he fell in love with Eleanor Wish, an FBI agent he'd partnered with on a case. After Wish had been drummed out of the Bureau (a result of their method of solving that case), he found her in Vegas at a new gig as professional gambler, where he learned to his surprise that their... ummm... "stakeouts" had created a daughter, Madeleine. Ten years later, Bosch is now part-time dad to 13-year-old Maddy, who lives with Mom in Hong Kong. He's also discovered a half brother, legal eagle Mickey Haller (the titular Lincoln Lawyer). For 9 Dragons, author Michael Connelly puts Bosch's family ties through the proverbial wringer: and it's not a pretty picture...

It started like any other homicide case: three bullet holes in the chest of a liquor store clerk, the cash drawer standing empty. A minor difference: Harry Bosch had vaguely known the dead man, John Li - all the more reason to put the perp in slam. Bosch and David Chu, a Chinese-American cop from the Asian Gang Unit and his latest semi-partner on the case, finger a triad bagman as the killer. Luckily, they nab him on his way to the airport to skip the country. It's Friday, so Bosch and Chu perform some backroom paper shuffling to keep him stashed over the weekend so they have more time to build their case. As Harry's sifting through the evidence, he receives a message that almost stops his heart: a video of Maddy, bound and gagged in an anonymous room. The message seems clear: drop the case, and you get your daughter back in one piece. Bosch being Bosch, no one - NO ONE! - else is good enough; so Harry's on the next plane to Hong Kong, hell-bent on doing anything to get his daughter back.

Unfortunately, in his hurry to leave, Harry Bosch forgot to say a prayer to the god of unintended consequences. He will regret that omission...

After years of carefully crafting one novel a year, author Michael Connelly's annual output has doubled in each of the past two years - and he's also taken to "cross-posting" his characters, such as Mickey Haller's cameo in 9 Dragons, or the double cameos of Haller and Bosch in 2009's Jack McEvoy novel The Scarecrow. While "factory writers" like James Patterson farm out at least part of their production, Connelly is doing it all himself. And if you ask me, the strain shows this time out.

Bosch, ever irascible, is even grumpier than usual (maybe if he stopped listening to heroin jazz all the time?) in 9 Dragons. Normally pushy and demanding, this time out he's simply arrogant and condescending; and at times just a little racist. While I'd assume that Connelly intended to depict Bosch in a different light with a plot that casts him as a frantic father, he came off more like TerminatorDad to this reader; a veritable bull in a China shop as he shot hell out of Hong Kong. I'll grant that Connelly managed to toss in some pretty wicked plot twists, but I caught on to the biggest one of all long before he even set it up. And at least one of those twists was, to be blunt, completely gratuitous.

Worst of all, however, is that Connelly's writing - the actual nuts and bolts of it - seems to have suffered as he upped his publishing output to two per annum. The flow is choppy, the dialog is sappy, and the plot is messy. Sorry, but Bosch is always at his best when he's thinking instead of going off half-cocked. This time out Connelly's turned him into a visceral killing machine who, frankly, needs to chill out.