Harry Bosch is back in Michael Connelly's latest novel, 9 Dragons, and he's brought his kid with him. Yeah, Harry has a kid: the pre-teen Maddie, who has been living in Hong Kong with his ex-wife, Eleanor Wish, the ex-FBI agent poker queen, who gambles professionally. I couldn't make this stuff up...but Connelly can.
9 Dragons is a good, quick, compelling read, but it's no Last Coyote or Concrete Blonde, two of the better Bosch books. As #16 in the HB series, it's not the worst, nor is it the best, but it does bring one character--Maddy--firmly into Bosch's life, while ending the story of another. Other Connelly-verse characters appear, too, as Harry almost causes an international incident when he runs off to Hong Kong to save his daughter who he thinks is being threatened by people involved in the current murder investigation he's trying to solve.
I love Connelly's work, and I love Bosch, so any new Harry book is a great thing for me. The introduction of a further-humanizing factor in Harry's life--i.e., living with a teenager--freshens up the sour old boy's life a bit and I'm sure it'll have an impact on his future tales. One bit of bad news from the world of Connelly though is the casting of the featherweight rom-com star Matthew McConnaughey as Mickey Haller in a film of The Lincoln Lawyer. Connelly fans know that Haller has a particular tie to Harry Bosch, and we hope there isn't an Avengers-like crossover in the works for the characters on the big screen in the future. Connelly hasn't had a lot of his work filmed: there's the regrettable Blood Work, starring and directed by Clint Eastwood, and an aborted adaptation of Void Moon, which was reportedly to star Diane Lane and Al Pacino, but never even made it to the filming stage. I think the Bosch books would work best as a series of HBO movies or mini-series, and I've always pictured Tom Selleck as Bosch, but he might be a bit too long in the tooth for the role now. As of 9 Dragons, I'm guessing Bosch is about 54 (Selleck is almost 65). But I digress...
Whether there's a Bosch movie or not in Harry--and Michael's--future, 9 Dragons is a great addition to the Bosch canon, moving Harry's life forward in a new and different way.
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