The Burning Room
Harry Bosch # 19
Michael Connelly

Little, Brown and Company
November 2014 / ISBN
Police Procedural / Contemporary / Los Angeles

Reviewed by LJ Roberts

First Sentence: It seemed to Bosch to be a form of torture heaped upon torture.

Retirement is closing in on Harry Bosch, working in the Open-Unsolved Unit. To provide training to new officers, he has been assigned Lucia (Lucy) Soto, a young officer definitely on the way up. Their first case is a Mariachi guitarist who was shot 20 years ago, but only recently died from the bullet still lodged near his spine. Was it a gang shooting, or something different; perhaps even intended for a different target? That's not the only case. When Lucy was young, she was the only survivor of a day-care center fire. Although it was ruled accidental, that may not have been true at all, and she wants answers.

From the start, we have a sense of who Harry is and a tiny glimpse as to what drives him. However, it also seems very clear that not only is Harry about to retire, but Connelly is very ready to retire him.

As always, Connelly's writing is crisp and spare, but it was also highly repetitive and became mired down in the details. Yes, the procedural details were interesting and informative, but do we really need to know every road Bosch takes and every detail of every meal? And let's not overlook the massive coincidence. About the only thing that was missed where his bathroom breaks.

The Burning Room was a disappointment. Normally, Connelly is a straight-through read. This time, it was a slog and I couldn't wait to get through it.

Reviews of other titles in this series