Liars and Saints

 Michael Connelly's new novel, "The Waiting," is about (you guessed it) waiting. The novel alludes to the Tom Petty song: The waiting is the hardest part; Every day you see one more card. You take it on faith; you take it to the heart. The waiting is the hardest part. A family has lost its pride and joy to a serial killer. Maddie Bosch seems to identify the serial killer (through luck). But the killer also happens to be the man responsible for the death of the Black Dahlia--the victim who ranks Number One among LA's famous victims. The DA can't stand the head of Maddie's division, for petty political reasons. If the DA gave Maddie "the win," this would really "smart." So the DA falsely claims that the evidence "isn't there." And a grieving family is wounded by this silliness. At the same time, Maddie's colleague, Renee Ballard, is doing some waiting of her own. She knows that her mother abandoned her years ago. She doesn...

 My favorite novel I've read in a while is "Desert Star," which is currently at the top of various sales lists in America. "Desert Star" is ostensibly about two puzzling murder cases, but really it's about people. It's a large gallery of bizarre, compelling characters. You have a politician whose team calls the police thirty minutes before a "surprise pop-in," so a photo shoot can be arranged. You have an "empath" who annoys her colleagues with inane chatter about "psychic auras," but who also may be indispensable to various cold-case investigation efforts. You have a bull-headed star, Bosch, who can't force himself to pay attention to his employer's agenda, and who insists on covertly photocopying private workplace papers. (The fights over photocopy privileges are such a treat, and they quickly bring Bosch to life. One thing that makes the writer Michael Connelly special is that he is *simultaneously* interested in ...

 The great American novelist Michael Connelly is also a book critic; he has written beautifully about the noir master James M. Cain.    https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/books/review/the-cocktail-waitress-by-james-m-cain.html Cain created "Double Indemnity," a story about evil and seduction. Its villain, Phyllis, is charismatic, beautiful, persuasive, and soulless; she is like a new version of the Wicked Queen, from "Snow White." I think Connelly had Phyllis in mind when he wrote his crime novel, "The Closers," because that particular book has a duplicitous villain for the ages. "The Closers" was a kind of comeback for Connelly; he had strayed from the standard police procedural, and, with "The Closers," he returned to form. The story has Connelly's main hero, Bosch, exiting retirement to look at a cold case. Years ago, a secretly pregnant biracial girl was murdered. The gun has a "tattoo"; it has skin from the alleged mu...

 Over break, I had the treat of reading Michael Connelly's "The Burning Room," which is a well-loved late-career book about Harry Bosch. (Janet Maslin said that "Burning Room" was a kind of renaissance for Michael Connelly.) The thing I love most about Connelly is his plots; it would be hard to outpace his imagination. In "The Burning Room," a man carries a bullet in his body for ten years, then finally dies from long-festering infections. There is a race to solve the ten-year slow-motion murder -- and it's soon clear that the bullet had a different target's name attached to it. (It's also clear that the mayor understood -- and hid -- certain facts about the wayward bullet. What a treat to piece together the puzzle of one mayor's cover-up.) "The Burning Room" also has nine children dying in a horrific act of arson. The act seems not to have any kind of linked motivation -- but of course, in Connelly, the appearance isn't t...

  In the weeks before Michael Connelly's "The Dark Hours" popped up, Stephen King read a pre-release copy and Tweeted, "I don't know how Connelly actually keeps getting better at this late stage in his career." I'm not sure he is getting better, but he is at least maintaining his momentum. His brain seems inexhaustible. He puts flawed, eccentric people in weird situations -- and I can't look away. "Dark Hours" refers to the most-difficult periods you endure, alone, after you have lived through a violent crime. In this novel, a pair of rapists, "the Midnight Men," are wandering around Los Angeles. They seem to egg each other on. Before any individual rape happens, the victim is forced to wear a blindfold, even though the rapists are already masked. Could this be because some kind of filming session is occurring -- and the rapists want to keep secret the presence of cameras? Elsewhere, in Los Angeles, there is a New Year tradition o...

 The world of Bosch is a world of weirdos. That's what keeps you turning pages. "The Overlook" introduces us to Don Hadley ("Done Badly") -- who invents a terrorist scheme where there isn't one, then fails to admit he has murdered an innocent civilian. We get a homeless drifter who finds Madonna's Hollywood Hills autograph and tries to stalk her. ("I wanted an autograph, for my mom.") When confronted by the police, the drifter asks, "Why does America sell Maps to the Stars, if stalking is illegal?" Bosch has a quick reply: "Why do we have parking lots next to bars, if you can't drink and drive?" My favorite weirdo is Bosch himself, who seems to make twenty secret calculations before every possible work interaction, and who won't lose sleep over having been exposed to life-threatening cesium. At the end of this book, Bosch shrugs and says, "Some people speculate that a little accidental radiation might ADD years ...

 Some writers just "speak your language." I think Michael Connelly is almost incapable of being dull. "The Late Show," a novel from a few years ago, has three crazy stories. In one, a car salesman assaults a victim in his "upside-down house," a house with the bedrooms in the lower levels, below the kitchen and dining room. It's the phrase "upside-down house" that leads to a break in the case. In a second story, a bad cop murders an informant who is wearing a wire. An observer understands that a wire was involved--because of the particular scar on the corpse's chest. This is a scar you get only when the battery from your "wire contraption" becomes overheated. And--third--a man commits robberies with a stolen gun. The theft of the gun was never reported because--earlier--that same gun had been used in a double-murder. A thief is bad; a two-time killer is worse. It's the thief who "saves the day." Michael Connelly is ...

Michael Connelly's "Trunk Music" refers to a mafia term. When you put a human in your trunk, then shoot the human in the head.....you're making "trunk music." A body is discovered in a trunk. Los Angeles Detective Harry Bosch interviews the widow--and learns that the deceased had some shadowy business in Las Vegas. Later, having traveled to that town, Bosch explores a culture of casinos and strip clubs ("Dolly's on Madison").  Some lessons..... P***sy dust" is glitter that you apply before a "lap dance" -- but if it gets on the "patron"'s khakis, then a marital fight might follow. If your valet is "Gussie," it may not be because he was born "August"; the name might refer to the valet's habit of getting "gussied up." A main goal, if you're working in a strip club, is to sell many, many glasses of overpriced champagne; that's where (some of) the major profits are. Michael Conn...

About Michael Connelly's classic novel, "The Last Coyote": On paid leave, LAPD Detective Harry Bosch decides to open an investigation into his mother's murder, to pass the time. He misses his mother; this woman worked as a prostitute and wanted to win, for her son, a better life. (The name "Bosch" is invented, and it has to do with our hero's admiration for the paintings of *another* Bosch....the way the many creatures in the "Garden of Earthly Delights" bring to mind colorful characters from Southern California.) Trying to determine who killed his mother, Bosch meets: a possibly-shady former cop, a damaged painter who may be suicidal, a talkative fellow in a nursing home, a tough, outspoken reporter. The case twists and turns, and Bosch almost continuously lies, in big and small ways, to get what he wants. He endangers his own life and the lives of others, and we're still just talking about the first half of the book. Sally Ro...

Michael Connelly is regarded by some--by "The Washington Post," for example--as the greatest American crime writer alive today. His fans include Bill Clinton and Tom Perrotta. Connelly named his detective hero after the painter Bosch, and there's an "Earthly Delights" aura about Connelly's writing. So many weird, twisted characters. You have the sense you're absorbed in a lurid, fully-realized world. One of Connelly's great gifts is his level of observation. He pauses to notice an arrogant boss sitting on an employee's desk, and to notice the coffee stain forming on the boss's butt, and to notice that no one bothers to point out the coffee stain to the boss. Connelly notices Bosch worrying about his teenaged daughter eating too many pizza dinners alone. Connelly notices when someone uses a last name as a greeting, and when that choice of greeting is not received well. Another gift: Even with this level of detail, Connelly always...

"The Case Against Adnan Syed." This is a big one. It will be on HBO in early March. Here's my understanding of the Adnan mess. A major reason why he was convicted was that a certain cell phone tower indicated that he was likely in an incriminating area at an incriminating time. But, after the trial, it was discovered that the "pinging" data was unreliable--at the least. I'm not saying Adnan didn't do the deed. But to put a guy behind bars for a reason as paltry as the thing the prosecution provided? That's weird. I'm so excited to see this HBO special. -Also: Brie Larson will be lighting up screens in "Captain Marvel." She says in the Times she didn't want such a high-profile project until she thought about the (pro-feminism) statement she could make with this career-move. She is especially pleased that Captain Marvel doesn't "start meek"--as so many superheroes do. Captain Marvel is a badass, and then she becomes ...