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THE DROP, Michael Connelly's latest contribution to the Harry Bosch series, is an engrossing read. An LA Councilman's son is discovered dead under the balcony of the exclusive Chateau Marmont hotel suite he had rented. The old question of "did he jump or was he pushed" becomes deeply entwined with the politics of both Los Angeles and the LAPD. The Councilman is Irvin Irving, Bosch's old nemesis, yet he requests that Bosch be the one to handle the investigation. In order to take over, Bosch has to pull himself away from a case with intriguing evidence that he has just started working on. As the book opens, Bosch is working with the Open-Unsolved Unit, and is on a case from the past where new DNA evidence has come to light. A drop of blood on a murdered woman has been analyzed and linked to a name. However, there is something not right about this information, since the person whose blood has been identified would have been eight years old at the time of the murder. Has the evidence been compromised, or is there another explanation? Before Bosch can investigate further, he is called away to sort out the death of George Irving, the Councilman's son. The detectives initially assigned to the case had ruled it a suicide, but Bosch refuses simply to accept this assumption. Although he does not understand why he has been selected to investigate, he knows that he has to play the case the way he sees it. As he looks further into the autopsy report and then into the activities of George Irving, he begins to see possible evidence of corruption and murder. But things may not be what they seem. Harry Bosch works on these two cases simultaneously. He must squeeze in time to follow leads that unfold in the cold case, which becomes more and more disturbing, while holding off the provocations of both Councilman Irving and the media on the other case. In an NPR interview, Michael Connelly said that he had Bosch on two cases deliberately because he knows that this is the way real police work is done. Detectives rarely have the luxury of focusing on only one case at a time, and he wanted his novel to reflect this fact of the job. There is a way in which these two cases do reflect on each other, but that does not become clearer until the end. The novel's title, similar to many other titles from this author, relates to a number of aspects of the novel, including the drop of blood that points to a suspect in the old murder, the body that falls from a balcony, and the acronym DROP, which stands for Deferred Retirement Option Plan. Bosch is near the end of his career and this rule determines how much longer they will let him serve in a job in which he fiercely believes. Bosch is a character who looks at his job as a mission. His integrity is what he is all about. In this book, that very aspect of who he is becomes the hook others use to try and manipulate him. The politics of the city and the police department, what Bosch refers to as "high jingo," are a strong focus of the plot. Something is always going on below the surface, and Bosch has to be constantly aware of the game. Even those close to him, partners and ex-partners, may be using him and secretly working behind his back. As with other books by this excellent writer, THE DROP has many surprises and it is not over until it is over. Anne Corey is a writer, poet, teacher and botanical artist in New York's Hudson Valley.
Reviewed by Anne Corey, December 2011
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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