Scott Rhee's Reviews > The Black Ice

There are people in the world who stand outside the periphery of society. They may walk within society, but they are not a part of it. They may be lonely, but they are not alone. They may be law-abiding and conform to the proper social mores, but they have very little patience for the law and politics. They have a sense of justice and morality all their own. Harry Bosch, the protagonist of Michael Connelly's long-running series, is one of these people. He is content with living a solitary life. His job, an LAPD homicide detective, is his life. He gets a paycheck, but he doesn't do it for the money. He doesn't play by the rules, mainly because he sees the rules as corrupt. He hates the bureaucrats and politicians and apathetic morons who have brought the LAPD to ruin.

"The Black Ice", the second Bosch book by Connelly, is a brilliant, beautiful work of literary art. Connelly continues to straddle the fine line between genre and literary fiction, a feat that only a rare few in the mystery genre can pull off. In this book, Bosch investigates what appears to be a suicide of a burn-out cop named Cal Moore. Moore's body is found in a sleazy hotel room, his head blown off from what appears to be a self-inflicted shotgun shot, with an enigmatic suicide note ("I found out who I was") found near the body.

Bosch is naturally skeptical, of course. He had just seen Moore a few days before the "suicide", and Moore did not seem to be as burned out as everyone claims. Lonely and sad, yes (his wife had just kicked him out, and IAD was breathing down his neck), but Bosch could relate to that. Moore was also apparently interested in an ongoing case about a Mexican drug cartel spreading black ice, a form of cocaine laced with heroin and PCP, that was slowly gaining popularity on the streets of L.A.

Against the wishes of his superiors (of course), Bosch investigates Moore's suicide. Irregularities at the crime scene, discrepancies in the coroner's report, a murder of an informant and another cop with links to Moore, and a gut feeling lead Bosch to the conclusion that Moore's death was an elaborately staged murder made to look like a suicide. Bosch's investigation ultimately leads him to a small town in Mexico, the place where Moore was born and raised, and a tragic story of fathers and sons, a story that triggers Bosch's own tragic relationship with a father he barely knew.

Connelly has definitely become my favorite author du jour. He has a definite knowledge about the realities of police procedural, the politics of the LAPD, and a clear understanding of the human condition. It makes me giddy thinking about the fact that there are over a dozen more books in the Bosch series that I have yet to read...