The Black Echo (Harry Bosch) | 
| Author: Michael Connelly
Creator: Dick Hill
Publisher: Brilliance Audio Unabridged
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  108 reviews
Sales Rank: 742152
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
Media: Audio Cassette
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 10
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 4.3 x 2.6
ISBN: 1593554176
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781593554170
ASIN: 1593554176
Publication Date: November 10, 2003
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Product Description
For LAPD homicide cop Harry Bosch -- hero, maverick, nighthawk -- the body in the drainpipe at Mulholland Dam is more than another anonymous statistic. This one is personal.
The dead man, Billy Meadows, was a fellow Vietnam "tunnel rat" who fought side by side with him in a nightmare underground war that brought them to the depths of hell. Now, Bosch is about to relive the horror of Nam. From a dangerous maze of blind alleys to a daring criminal heist beneath the city to the torturous link that must be uncovered, his survival instincts will once again be tested to their limit.
Joining with an enigmatic and seductive female FBI agent, pitted against enemies inside his own department, Bosch must make the agonizing choice between justice and vengeance, as he tracks down a killer whose true face will shock him.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 103 more reviews...
 The first Bosch novel. A great book and a must read for series fans June 12, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
The Black Echo is the book that started it all, the book that began Michael Connelly's career as one of the best police procedural/detective thriller authors in the market today. I've read around half of Connelly's novels, so I know all about Harry Bosch and I know what to expect when I read a Connelly novel. Even though this is the first one in the series, and you could reasonably expect a little less quality, you'll get none of that here. The Black Echo is a great novel and a great introduction into the life of Det. Harry Bosch. On the downside, the novel is incredibly long, perhaps too long. But, overall, it is a great introduction to the series.
The plot begins simply enough when Bosch is called to investigate the death of a drug addict found in a large sewage pipe by a dam. Turns out Bosch recoginizes the guy as Meadows, a former tunnel rat in Viet Nam. The medical examiner first believes the guy OD'd on drugs, but Bosch finds evidence that points to murder. While Bosch investigates Meadows, Bosch finds evidence that indicates Meadows may have been involved in a larger crime. This leads Bosch to begin working with the FBI and agent Eleanor Wish.
Bosch and Wish together investigate Meadows and there are all the twists and turns that Connelly is famous for. Jerry Edgar, his partner is present, as is Irvin Irving, the IAD cop who doesn't like Bosch. The strength of the novel however, is the details of the beginning of Bosch's relationship with Wish. I've read several Bosch novels, but not the ones where Bosch and Wish develop more of their relationship. The turn their relationship takes in this book is really good and surprising and worth reading because of it.
If you're fans of Bosch, read this book. This is one series where the characters really grow on you and Connelly has the talent of creating characters who grow stronger from book to book. You won't want to miss the exceptional beginning to this great series.
 A fair novel May 25, 2008
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
My reaction to this novel was a bit of a surprise to me. Normally for me, it's a given that if I don't really like the main character, I won't like the novel itself. This book sort of turned that on its head as I did like the novel itself but didn't care for the main character all that much.
The novel is an interesting and well-plotted police procedural in which the discovery of a body which seems to be that of a drug addict who overdosed turns up a very elaborate and involved mystery. I found the mystery to be rather inventive and fascinating in and of itself. It's difficult to discuss the mystery without giving too much away but suffice to say that Harry Bosch knew the victim in Vietnam and that this past comes very much into play.
As for Harry Bosch, I just could never see him as more than a cliched character. He's what I tend to think of the typical go it alone cop with a tortured past. I didn't actively dislike him but I didn't find him interesting either. It seemed to me that for as original as the mystery was, Bosch himself was one of the most unoriginal characters I've ever encountered in a mystery novel.
I also felt that the portrayal of the internal affairs officers was cliched as well. I understand that the men and women who work in internal affairs are generally disliked by other police officers but what I would really be interested in seeing is a novel that gives a more balanced view of the men and women who do what must be an exceedingly difficult job. Connelly's IAD cops are so ridiculous as to be little more than caricatures and even goes so far as to give the two of them the ludicrous names of Lewis and Clarke which, of course, results in excessive poking of fun at their names. The portrayal of their boss wasn't any better, really, and I never understood exactly why he had it in for Bosch. I don't find the idea of cops trying to bring about the downfall of others cops a bad plot device--indeed, Elizabeth George uses it to great effect in her Lynley novels--but there has to be a clear idea of just why the cops hate one another.
Lastly, I can't help but nitpick when it comes to the dialog. The characters have a tendency to speak without use of contractions and this rendered the dialog so stilting at times that it jolted me right out of the story. Normal people use contractions all the time and in order for a written conversation to sound authentic, it really needs to follow the conventions of normal speech. Not so here. It was as if the characters were trying to play act at being characters from a Jane Austen novel or something.
Intriguing debut; interesting way to start a new series April 23, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
"The Black Echo" is a debut in two ways - it is, apparently, Micheal Connelly's first novel, and it is also our introduction to Harry Bosch, a homicide detective in the Hollywood beat (after being busted down from Robbery-Homicide for killing a suspect). A loner and a maverick, Bosch is not popular with his bosses, nor with many of his co-workers, but he gets the job done. When he is called out to a murder scene where the murder victim turns out to be someone he knew from Vietnam - a fellow "tunnel rat" named Billy Meadows - Bosch begins another investigation that makes him unpopular. His bosses want him to write it off as another drug overdose and move on, but Bosch feels there is more there. First crossing blades - then later teaming up - with the FBI, Harry sets out to find out exactly how it was that his old friend ended up dead in a water pipe over Mulholland Dam.
The mystery is labyrinthine, the twists and turns numerous; however, I must be reading too many of these, because I threw a wild guess out right at the beginning of the book that turned out to be (at least partially) correct. Of course, there was a good bit I never saw coming.
I like Connelly's writing style. He doesn't start this out like it is the first book in the series. He writes about Bosch as if we've already been a long-time acquaintance of his - talking about past cases as if we should know about them, of past relationships as if we were aware, of past failings as if we were there to witness them. We're gradually given more information as we meet more people who tell us more about Bosch, but he remains shadowy even as we learn more about him - a mysterious figure even in the full light of day.
A bit of noir, a bit of thriller, and bit of mystery and police procedural; I think this book has something for just about anyone who likes books of these sorts. I can recommend it - I'm certainly glad I gave it a try!
Meet Detective Harry Bosch February 1, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
After reading some of the more recent entries in the Harry Bosch series, I finally went back and started at the beginning. The Black Echo, by the excellent Michael Connelly, marks the first in what is a great series. Set in Los Angeles, which is described in vivid fashion by Connelly, this story involves a suspicious death of a Vietnam veteran and a bank robbery. Bosch has a way of getting in his own way, and causing people to dislike him in the LAPD. In this book, he is accused of not being in the "family" and is followed by Internal Affairs. There is enough politics and realism in this story, that it could almost be true. There are elements of many genres in this book; including mystery, thriller, a bit of romance, and enough grit to be a true crime novel. Connelly is clearly one of the best mystery/police procedural authors writing today. He has a very good understanding of the politics involved between local law enforcement and its federal counterparts. The Black Echo is a great opportunity to start back at the very beginning and enjoy the development of one of the most complex and believable characters in mystery series today. I rate this book a well-deserved 5 stars.
The Black Echo, A Review by SpeekNDaTruuf January 25, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Black Echo 482pgs.
by Michael Connelly
Review by SpeekNDaTruuf
Ever wish you could curl up in a comfortable chair with your favorite drink and immerse yourself in a good thriller, a captivating "whodunit"? Well, wish no more! Michael Connelly provides this in The Black Echo, taking you on a ride that you wish didn't end on page 482.
When a man is murdered, his body dumped into a pipe line of the Mulholland Dam, LAPD homicide cop Harry Bosch is called to investigate the crime. But this crime is unlike others, because this time, it's personal. The victim, a heroin addict, happens to be a former "tunnel rat" who served alongside Bosch in the Vietnam War. It is believed and widely accepted that along with drugs comes violence, so this should be an open and shut case, right? Wrong! Bosch, who doesn't believe in coincidences, stumbles upon too many things that don't sit right with him, thus he begins his investigation immediately. Teamed with a female FBI agent, Bosch has to determine why this victim was killed, and what he finds out leads him into the past, into her bed, into the underworkings of the city where a heist is taking place, and into his own personal nightmares.
One aspect that I enjoyed about this novel was learning about the "tunnel rats". As a product of the '80s, I didn't learn in depth about any wars until the late '90s. One, in particular, was the Vietnam War which ended in 1975, four years before I was born. Connelly didn't know that I had very little knowledge of the war, but he provided enough history and visual references to educate me on the underground horrors that the "tunnel rats" faced in 'Nam. That is one thing that I love about this novel. You don't have to know it all, you don't even have to know a little bit, because Connelly gives it to you as if he is educating, say, a child. And because of his outstanding imagery, it's easy to become caught up in imagining what these men, these "tunnel rats", must have endured: trudging through the confined tunnels which oftentimes felt like infernos, panicking as the stench or as the darkness encamped around you, not knowing whether you were going to be captured and killed in a booby trap, losing your sense of direction and becoming lost. If I were claustrophobic, I am sure that there would have been times when I had to put this book down because it was so real.
Another aspect that I loved was the relationship between Bosch and the female FBI agent, Eleanor Wish. The chemistry between this pair is perfect, even though Bosch is a middle-aged white detective and Wish is a middle-aged black FBI agent. Connelly has written both of these characters so that there is no power struggle nor any racial tension between them evident. There are, at times, the feeling that the man has to take control, that he has to be in charge. But the two respect each other, and they try not to step on each other's toes. In fact, they find themselves attracted to each other, and that leads into another, different, world in this novel. While reading this, I thought of the interracial relationships of the past and of today. America's past isn't pretty, to say the least. While it was common for a white man to take a black mistress, it was suicide for a black man to have a white anything. Then, not so long ago, we saw the rise of interracial relationships, and it was still more white men taking black women, but not necessarily as mistresses. People still turned their heads and their noses up when they saw an interracial couple. Today, however, it seems more acceptable by society's standards. So, it was good to read a novel that reflected today's beliefs.
One last, but not final, aspect that I enjoyed about this novel was the inner workings of the law enforcement world. Connelly has written such an in-depth novel where we are able to see how the different agencies work together to solve a crime. There's the LAPD and the FBI, but then there's also the other local law enforcement (BHPD - Beverly Hills Police Department, the medical examiners, etc.), and each of these organizations have their chiefs, deputies and so on and so forth. While he does use a lot of abbreviations, Connelly also, perhaps two or three lines further down, tells us what these abbreviations mean. That is another reason why I loved this book. It would've been hell to try to decipher what these acronyms meant, and I'm thinking that Connelly knew that as well. That is why he included the description of each organization, of each acronym and abbreviation. Reading this, I feel as if I have a better understanding how the law enforcement works, and what organizations deal with what. I've always seen them as a separate, secret society all their own because they have the duty of protecting and serving us, and sometimes I can't see how they're protecting and serving yet they're getting paid for it, but I have a better understanding now. And I must say, I have a higher respect for them now. Not as high as someone more patriotic, but I do have a better respect for them. But, as usual, there is always someone inside that secret society that looks to only bettering him/herself, regardless if it will hurt someone else. Connelly includes that aspect in this novel as well, and what you find here might just surprise you! No wonder he was voted as the winner of the Edgar Award for Best First Novel and that the New York Times deemed him a bestselling author.
I loved this book, and I believe you will too, especially if you're interested in mystery novels. I give Michael Connelly and The Black Echo THREE AND A HALF STARS.
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