The
Overlook" is much more of a
plot driven
novel - a shorter, snappier,
purely action oriented police procedural but no less successful and enjoyable for the differences!
Dr Stanley Kent, a medical bio-physicist who had access to radioactive materials used in the treatment of cancers at hospitals throughout LA, has been found murdered - executed, in fact, with two bullets in the back of the head - on a Mulholl and Drive overlook. Bosch, assigned to the murder with his new partner, Iggy Ferras, immediately begins to bump heads with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, called in on the
case as a result of the potential terrorist involvement with the assassination. The case is mere minutes old and Kent''s body has barely begun to cool when Bosch discovers that the crime also involves the theft of a case of potentially deadly radioactive Cesium-137. That the FBI agent assigned to the case is Rachel Walling, Bosch''s love interest who we met in Connelly''s last novel "Echo Park" complicates matters immensely but certainly doesn''t prevent the inevitable inter-organizational war over case jurisdiction.
There is no doubt in my mind ... Connelly is brilliant! Even with a purely plot-oriented novel, he has made sure that Bosch loses none of the flavour or depth of character so carefully built up in twelve previous novels. His interaction with Walling is both hot and heated (if you understand the subtle distinction). The jurisdictional squabbling and in-fighting has a definite tinge of realism and, frankly, it is difficult as a
reader to sit in judgment in this particular case and take sides. Bosch and Walling, the FBI and the LAPD were all right and wrong at various moments in the novel!
And what can one say about the ending? There is no way that any reader is going to see this fancy twist coming!