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Connelly is a bit of a genius in the crime writing field
Book Review
By Derryll White
Connelly, Michael (2018). Dark Sacred Night.
Michael Connelly is a bit of a genius in the crime writing field. He created Harry Bosch and developed that character through 25 novels so far. Bosch has become an icon in crime fiction.
Then Connelly spun off Harry’s half-brother Micky Haller into seven Lincoln Lawyer novels. Slowing with these characters Connelly said ‘what the hell’ and created a powerhouse female detective, a member of the Los Angeles Police Department named Renée Ballard.
She has carried on Bosch’s tradition of being at odds with the police bureaucracy and has been assigned to ‘the late show’, the midnight shift. Ballard has six novels in her series and the author brings her and Bosch together for the first time in ‘Dark Sacred Night.’
Michael Connelly is a strong writer, both with character development, story line and detail. He has several different stories going within the over-arching search for the murderer of 15-year-old Daisy Clayton. The reader gets a clear picture of the mean streets of Hollywood, the gang hate as well as the misogynistic struggle of being a principled and strong woman in a male dominated, testosterone-fueled organization.
‘Dark Sacred Night’ is both a good and a hard read – good because Connelly keeps the reader totally wired and involved in the story; hard because it is scary to think we share the night with people such as Daisy Clayton’s twisted murderer.
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Excerpt from the novel:
ELITE JUSTICE – The STS held a unique position in the LAPD. Often investigated by outside agencies ranging from the FBI to the media to civil rights groups, often sued by the families of the suspects shot, routinely labeled a “death squad” by outraged attorneys, the unit enjoyed a completely opposite reputation within the rank and file of the department. Infrequent openings in the unit brought hundreds of applications, including from those willing to drop pay grades just to get in. The reason was that, more so than any other unit, this was seen as true police work. The STS took violent offenders off the board. Whether they were taken alive didn’t matter. They took out shooters, rapists, serial killers. The ripple effect of crimes not committed because of STS captures and kills was unquantifiable but huge. And there wasn’t a cop on the force who wouldn’t want to be part of that. Never mind all the outside critics, the investigations, and the lawsuits. This was to serve and protect in its rawest form.
– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them. When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.
