Reading, 2010, Part 1

I was given an entire shelf of Michael Connelly novels back around 2003. I'd never read anything by him. I chose to try Chasing The Dime. I judged it a bad book by a good writer, and boxed all his books up until this past year, when I decided to finally try the Harry Bosch novels, beginning (arbitrarily) with Angels Flight.

Is anyone reading this still awake?

I found Angels Flight ridiculously well-made and exciting, and went on to read another 7 or 8 Michael Connelly novels in 2010. Void Moon, a standalone thriller like Chasing The Dime, is marginally better than that book. The earliest books in the Bosch series are a bit clumsy; Trunk Music, of the ones I've read so far, comes closest to replicating the quality of Angels Flight.

I haven't been able to bring myself to try one of the books narrated in the first-person by Bosch, nor any of the books wherein Bosch meets up with the heroes of other Connelly novels: That last gambit never lived up to the front-cover hype in my Marvel Comics years, and I distrust it and resent it a little, even now.

****

Another writer I've meant to read for years, and finally read in 2010, is Alan Furst, who has already produced a shelf of WWII-era espionage novels. As with Connelly, I felt compelled to break a usual rule, and read a handful of his books nearly back-to-back.

I'm reminded of Ross McDonald's Lew Archer novels, in that McDonald and Furst both seem to be writing the same novel over and over again -- not so much working to a formula (although they are) as trying to perfect a single work, to get that perfect version of the novel in their head down on the page.

I'm also reminded again, by comparison, of how little feels at stake in most thrillers....

*****