Nine Dragons: 15 (Harry Bosch)

By the time their series reach a fifteenth installment, authors tend to fall back on the status quo, putting familiar characters in recognizable situations. Not so with Connelly, who continues to explore the darkest reaches of Harry Bosch's psyche in ways that will surprise even Connelly's die-hard fans. In fact, it is the author's deft combination of police procedural and taut psychological suspense that separates Bosch from other fictional crime detectives...Nine Dragons once again illustrates Connelly's magic touch.

The plot twists twice in the final pages to create an astonishing climax to a thriller not short of heart-in-the-mouth moments...Michael Connelly not only takes heroic Bosch to new places but changes his life forever. He just gets better and better.

Len Cariou superbly voices the roughly seasoned Detective Bosch. Cariou's grizzly vocals successfully invoke a range of characters-from the tender, caring parent to the aggressive cop. Cariou effortlessly switches between American regional accents and the soft tones of the Asian-American accent. From the streets of Los Angeles to the back alleys of Hong Kong, this suspense novel won't disappoint fans and should satisfy those new to the series.

The most wrenching Bosch novel yet...The jagged intersection between a cop's personal and professional lives is a recurring theme in many crime novels, but never has it been portrayed with the razor-edge sharpness and psychological acuity that Connelly brings to the subject.

Nine Dragons is a gritty, coffee-and-cigarettes crime thriller full of smart twists and generous helpings of suspense. Fans of Michael Connelly can expect another exceptional thrill ride, while newcomers will be immediately engaged by the tortured and unrelenting Bosch.

Remarkably fine...With Nine Dragons, Connelly has taken a chance by transforming a character millions have come to know well. In doing so, he has made Harry Bosch more human and interesting than ever.

In Nine Dragons, Bosch's crisp, cold-eyed rationality is blown to smithereens. Stoicism goes right out the window. And the vivid drama of this contrast gives the novel its ferocious energy. Once under way, you can't stop reading Nine Dragons and not just because you want to know whodunit. You want to know how Bosch is going to operate in a whole new kind of darkness.

More global and more intimate than anything Connelly has published since his first novel.

Nine Dragons ignites Bosch's personal and professional lives, bringing them together in an explosive manner...[and] plunges the reader into a firestorm of danger and tragedy...To say that Nine Dragons is coiled tight with suspense understates Connelly's accomplishment in portraying Bosch at the cusp of a new world.

Harry Bosch is in the middle of a major case in Los Angeles when his world is turned upside down with one phone call. His usual Sunday morning call to his daughter, who lives with her mother in Hong Kong, is answered by a stranger. Harry learns through the cryptic conversation that he has stumbled into the middle of a kidnapping. His daughter is being held until her mother, Eleanor Wish, can win enough money in the poker rooms of nearby Macau to buy her back.

Bosch drops everything to go to his daughter's rescue and lands in Hong Kong as the already exotic city is celebrating the Festival of Ghosts. Prayer fires burn all over the city, creating a surreal backdrop for a life-and-death investigation. Harry is a fish out of water here, but cop work is cop work, no matter where you are. He finds his daughter but also finds that things aren't what they seem to be, even with her.