Black Echo by Michael Connelly
Black Echo by Michael Connelly, Harry Bosch Book #1
Introduction
LAPD Hollywood Homicide detective Harry Bosch takes a case that appears to be a junkie overdose, but he soon finds out the case has links to his past. Bank robbers, street hustlers, and FBI agents complicate his case. He must follow the evidence to discover the reasons behind the murder and unmask the plot that traces back to the Vietnam War or face death from the perpetrators.
Summary
Bosch knows the murder victim, Billy Meadows. He was a fellow Vietnam War veteran that fell on hard times. Meadows and Bosch were tunnel rats in the war, who went into tunnels to find the enemy. Tunnel rats call the feeling they get when they were lost in the dark underground, the black echo. The job breaks many and the successful still suffer. The witness to the crime goes by the tagger’s name of Sharkey. He is a street hustler that Bosch searches for and finds. Bosch is contacted by the FBI because Meadows was suspected of being part of a bank-robbing gang that uses the underground LA storm sewers for their crimes. Bosch is partnered with FBI agent Eleanor Wish, with whom he starts a relationship. The various elements come together, and Bosch is tested both mentally and physically to solve the case.
Recommendation
I read this novel after I watched season three of Bosch on Amazon video. Season three was based on the novels The Black Echo, and A Darkness More Than Night. The season was released in 2017 and the novel was published in 2002. Because of the gap in time, certain things had to be changed on the show. Changes in technology were updated and the Vietnam War was changed to the Afghanistan war. The bank-robbing plot was changed to a stealing money plot. The biggest change was how Eleanor Wish was portrayed.
This is the first Bosch novel and FBI agent Wish is first introduced to Bosch in this novel. In the show, Wish and Bosch are divorced, have a high school-age daughter, and Wish lives in Vegas and is a card shark, no longer an FBI agent. The change with Wish was the thing that surprised me the most when I read the novel after seeing the TV show. I did not expect what happened in the plot and I like that. One thing that stayed the same was the character named Sharkey. What he did and where he ended up were the same on the TV and a novel. It was the perfect choice. I like this novel. I plan to read Angels Flight next because it inspired season four of Bosch (released in 2018), which I have also seen.
Links
Black Echo by Michael Connelly
This is the link to the Goodreads page of The Black Echo by Michael Connelly
https://www.goodreads.com/work/editions/48262-the-black-echo
A book that shares some similarities to the Dead Key by DM Pulley. They are both mysteries where the key to solving the case is found in the past. The protagonist in the Black Echo is LAPD Hollywood Homicide detective Harry Bosch. The protagonist in the Dead Key is forensic engineer Iris Latch. The link to the Dead Key by DM Pulley is linked below.