Title: The Crossing (Book 20 in The Harry Bosch series)
Author: Michael Connelly
Social Media: Goodreads and Twitter
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Price and Format: Paperback at $27.99
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
About The Author:
Michael Connelly decided to become a writer after discovering the books of Raymond Chandler while attending the University of Florida. Once he decided on this direction he chose a major in journalism and a minor in creative writing — a curriculum in which one of his teachers was novelist Harry Crews. After graduating in 1980, Connelly worked at newspapers in Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, primarily specializing in the crime beat. In Fort Lauderdale he wrote about police and crime during the height of the murder and violence wave that rolled over South Florida during the so-called cocaine wars. In 1986, he and two other reporters spent several months interviewing survivors of a major airline crash. They wrote a magazine story on the crash and the survivors which was later short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. The magazine story also moved Connelly into the upper levels of journalism, landing him a job as a crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times, one of the largest papers in the country, and bringing him to the city of which his literary hero, Chandler, had written.
After three years on the crime beat in L.A., Connelly began writing his first novel to feature LAPD Detective Hieronymus Bosch. The novel, The Black Echo, based in part on a true crime that had occurred in Los Angeles, was published in 1992 and won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel by the Mystery Writers of America. Connelly has followed that up with 26 more novels. Fifty-eight million copies of Connelly’s books have sold worldwide and he has been translated into thirty-nine foreign languages. He has won the Edgar Award, Anthony Award, Macavity Award, Los Angeles Times Best Mystery/Thriller Award, Shamus Award, Dilys Award, Nero Award, Barry Award, Audie Award, Ridley Award, Maltese Falcon Award (Japan), .38 Caliber Award (France), Grand Prix Award (France), Premio Bancarella Award (Italy), and the Pepe Carvalho award (Spain) .
Michael was the President of the Mystery Writers of America organization in 2003 and 2004. In addition to his literary work, Michael is one of the producers and writers of the TV show, “Bosch,” which is streaming on Amazon Prime Instant Video. Watch in the USA: http://amzn.to/192NqZE. Watch in the UK: http://amzn.to/1BAHm3Z. Watch in Germany: http://amzn.to/1zQ8T1X. He was also one of the creators, writers, and consulting producers of Level 9, a TV show about a task force fighting cyber crime, that ran on UPN in the Fall of 2000. And he can sometimes be seen on the hit TV show Castle playing poker!
Michael lives with his family in Florida.
About The Book:
Six months ago, Harry Bosch left the LAPD before they could fire him, and then hired his half-brother, the maverick Defence Attorney Mickey Haller to sue the department for forcing him out. Although it wasn’t the way he wanted to go, Bosch has to admit that being out of the game has its benefits.
Until Mickey asks him to help on one of his cases, and suddenly Harry is back where he belongs, right in the centre of a particularly puzzling murder mystery. The difference is, this time Bosch is working for the defence, aiming to prevent the accused, Leland Foster, from being convicted. And not only does the prosecution seem to have a cast-iron case, but having crossed over to ‘the dark side’ as his former colleagues would put it, Bosch is in danger of betraying the very principles he’s lived by his whole career.
With the secret help of his former LAPD partner Lucia Soto, he turns the investigation inside the police department. But as Bosch gets closer to discovering the truth, he makes himself a target.
General Observations:
Personal Bias: There is some personal bias involved with Michael Connelly, I am a super massive fan of him, I even went to an author even to see him at The Wheeler Center in Melbourne CBD (I got to ask TWO questions! TWO! I was so nervous and he was very polite). However, the reason I got into his books wasn’t because of the Harry Bosch series, but rather The Lincoln Lawyer (which is one of my favorite novels of all time), I love the Mickey Haller series and I love how the Mickey Haller series and the Harry Bosch series have occasional cross-overs like in Nine Dragons. However, the Harry Bosch series is over twenty books long and Michael Connelly personally recommends starting at Echo Park, rather than at the beginning.
Interesting Plot: The Plot is great, everything connects together in the end and even though I figured it out a little sooner than the protagonist, that didn’t diminish it either because that gave me another puzzle to figure out (how long before the bad-guys know Harry Bosch is onto them? How is Harry Bosch going to take them down?). The plot was also good in a way that it brought up legitimate problems happening in society right now, like police brutality, how modern technology is affecting police work and other industries like prostitution and pornography but most importantly the importance of friends and social connections. Now that Comic Book Vigilantes have become a mainstream trend, it’s refreshing to point out how a Private Investigator or an average person can help solve a murder without breaking law (though there was a big deal made about the moral grey areas involved).
Wagnst: As I mentioned, there were some morally grey areas involved, however I think Harry Bosch did come across as a little wangsty in some parts, like how he angsted over taking the case in the first place because working for a defense lawyer is going over to “The Dark Side” (as though he could justify comparing working for Mickey Haller as an investigator to what Anakin Skywalker did). I know he’s a cop and I know that he likes to think the justice system works (albeit with problems) but a veteran police officer and detective has to admit (even it’s just to himself) that, as the current American Justice system stand, it is a possibility for innocent people go to jail for crimes they don’t commit or get harsher sentences than they deserve. But you know, drama!
All in all, while it’s not a series a reader just jump into and start at any place (you do need to read the Mickey Haller Series and Nine Dragons before reading this book), I felt it was an excellent addition to the Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller series and I thoroughly enjoyed it
The Mickey Haller Series:
01. The Lincoln Lawyer
02. The Brass Verdict
03. The Reversal
04. The Fifth Witness
05. The Gods of Guilt
Ambiguous Pieces 
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