The plots are altered – the purist might say tampered with – but the Bosch character played by Titus Welliver, bearing a strong resemblance to James Nesbitt, drives the adaptation in ways that do not disappoint those devotees to the novels.
Bosch has been in a clash with someone from the brass and has been put on forced leave. Just a small matter of ramming a face through a window. Not perhaps as prevalent an occurrence as the wish to do likewise. When it comes to bosses, for many crapped upon subordinates, Mencken’s law holds good:
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
He wants back on the job but the psychiatrist responsible for his healthcare doesn’t think it is a good idea. Bosch is grounded but opts to put free time to costly use in the service of a quest to unravel the mystery of his mother.
Bosch is 43 and his mother was murdered when he was 12. Three decades is a long time. Nor is there a lot to work with. Bosch never obtained his elevated status as an investigator for not being up to the task. His deficiencies were not those of the detectives who put the police file on his mother’s murder together. The death of a hooker didn’t get a lot of police time as a matter of course unless a serial killer was on the loose and the political pressure was mounting as a result. But why would the death of a prostitute merit the time given to fabricating a cover-up?
Lurking under each unturned stone lie pointers to a trail that very much screams of investigative wrong doing. Darting back and forth across his field of vision, much like one of those irritating floaters that come with age, is a politician and a District Attorney. The beneficiaries of a cover up – surely not? But why? Bosch the blood hound had his nose to the ground.
Harry Bosch is meant to uphold something regarded as the rules based system of society. But his methods are often guided by anything but rules. If rules help he will go with them. If rules hinder he will break them. Aloof and alone he rules on what is permissible.
A strange hit and run death shortly after the murder of his mother, the victim, Johnny Fox, a person who knew the mother in a professional capacity, A reporter leaned on to write anything but accurately. More killings pile up and Bosch piles it on. One of his superiors is murdered and the LA heat is on with Harry the Hunted not the only one in pursuit of quarry.
This book was always going to come early enough in the elongated series. Michael Connelly needed to have it addressed so that Bosch could move on. And Bosch moves fast and tenaciously, with the determination of a honey badger sweeping obstacles and conventions to the side. This novel peels away the layers surrounding the heart of a deeply troubled man. A last coyote, a Johnny Fox, a blood hound and a honey badger: the untamed zoo that is the LA crime scene holds no fear for Bosch. The Walking Dead it is not but a surprise twist at the end might just lead you to think that it is.
Michael Connelly, 2013, The Last Coyote. Grand Central Publishing;ISBN-13: 978-1455550647.
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