The last coyote

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The Last Coyote (English: The Last Coyote ) is the fourth novel by the US crime novelist Michael Connelly and also the fourth book in the Harry Bosch series. The detective novel was published in 1995 by Little, Brown and Company , the German translation by Norbert Puszkar in 1998 by Heyne . He received the Dilys Award in 1996 .

action

Harry Bosch is on compulsory leave and regularly has to go to Dr. Visit Carmen Hinojos from the LAPD's Psychological Service . He pushed Harvey Pounds, his boss at the Hollywood Homicide Squad, into a glass door that shattered.

While on compulsory leave, Bosch begins to take up an unsolved case that has plagued him for a long time: the 1961 murder of his mother, Marjorie Phillips Lowe. In the investigation files, Bosch sees that the two detectives responsible at the time, Claude Eno and Jake McKittrick, had interviewed his mother's girlfriend. Bosch went to see Meredith Roman, who was also prostitute like his mother in 1961, and learned something from her that she had not told the investigators at the time: On the evening of her murder, Marjorie Lowe had an appointment with Arno Conklin, who was then on the go, district prosecutor to become.

Bosch followed this lead and through his contacts at the LA Times he found a newspaper article from 1962 that reported about the fatal car accident and escape of an employee of Arno Conklin's campaign. This employee was called Johnny Fox - the pimp of Bosch's mother and her friend. Fox was hired by Gordon Mittel, Conklin's campaign manager, after Bosch's mother was murdered.

Gordon Mittel is now an influential lawyer who is organizing a fundraising gala for the candidacy of IT industrialist Robert Shepherd. Bosch smuggled himself into the gala under the name of Harvey Pounds and sent Mittel a copy of the newspaper article about the Johnny Fox car accident. He sees Agent read the article and cast a curse.

To find out more, Bosch wants to speak to the investigators from back then. But Eno has passed away and McKittrick is retired in Florida . Bosch flies to Tampa and speaks to McKittrick. The conversation corroborates Bosch's impression that Conklin and Mittel were involved in the murder of his mother and that Eno was supposed to be covering up the case. Bosch flies from Florida to Las Vegas , where he can track down Eno's widow's alleged sister, actually his lover. In the remains of Eno, Bosch finds bank statements showing that Eno received $ 1,000 a month through a Los Angeles front company.

When Bosch returns to Los Angeles, there are internal investigators at his home. Harvey Pounds was tortured and murdered. Bosch is one of the suspects. But Bosch was in Florida at the time of the Pounds murder and can therefore refute the suspicion. Still, he feels guilty for posing as pounds and thereby likely targeting them.

Bosch confronts Arno Conklin with his suspicions in the old people's home. But everything was completely different: Arno Conklin wanted to marry Bosch's mother in Las Vegas, but Gordon Mittel was strictly against it. Conklin is sure that Agent is the killer. Now events are overturning. Bosch is knocked down by Jonathan Vaughn, Mittel's bodyguard , and comes to in the Mittel home. Mittel claims that Conklin fell out of his window - of course, suicide is not believable as both Conklin's legs were amputated. Agent gives Vaughn the signal to kill Bosch. However, this can defend himself, brings Vaughn down and pursues agent, who falls in the fight and dies. Bosch is injured and explains his theory of the case to Deputy Police Chief Irving in the hospital.

At the next meeting with Dr. Hinojos makes him aware that the belt he found on his mother didn’t match her other outfit. Now everything becomes clear to Bosch, because the belt was a gift chosen by Meredith Roman. He rushes to her house, but finds her dead - suicide. In a letter, she confesses to the murder out of jealousy of her friend. Bosch is on the phone to notify the police when Jonathan Vaughn threatens him with a Beretta . He is actually Johnny Fox, whose death he co-orchestrated with Mittel. Fox murdered Pounds and Conklin. When the police arrive, Fox is killed in an exchange of fire.

background

The title of the novel The Last Coyote refers to a lone coyote , which the main actor Harry Bosch sees outside his home and then pursued him in his dreams. When he told his on-duty therapist Carmen Hinojos about the coyote, she analyzed that Bosch identified himself with the animal: Just as there were only a few coyotes left in the hills around Los Angeles, there were only a few police officers like him and he felt himself threatened in its existence like the coyote.

Originally, Michael Connelly wanted to add a prologue to the novel , which played in Harry Bosch's childhood and in which he saw his mother for the last time at the age of eleven, before she lost custody of her son and Bosch grew up in homes. Since elements of this scene had to be repeated in the later plot, he decided to jump into the plot more directly and deleted the prologue.

reception

Similar Kirkus Review also highlights Publishers Weekly subscription to the nature of the character Harry Bosch novel out, "Edgar-winner Connelly mixes Harry's calculation attempts seamlessly with his therapy sessions to illustrate how the greatest mystery is sometimes the self." In Los The Angeles Times emphasizes that the novel takes up the stereotype of an outsider cop such as Dirty Harry . Connelly's merit, however, is for having carved out the individual Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch from this. The novel also gain from Connelly's experience as a long-time police reporter in Los Angeles . This enables him to describe the city with the intensity of a Chandler . It is the most ambitious, skilful and moving novel in the series by then.

Nominations and Awards

The Last Coyote received the Dilys Award in 1996, presented by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. He was nominated for the Anthony Award and the Macavity Award in the same year , and in 1995 for the Hammett Prize .

filming

The plot of the second season of the Amazon Studios- produced crime series Bosch is based in addition to the novels The Comeback and The Adversary in parts on the novel The Last Coyote .

expenditure

  • Michael Connelly: The Last Coyote . Little, Brown and Company, Boston 1995, ISBN 0-316-15390-7 .
  • Michael Connelly: The Last Coyote . From the American by Norbert Puszkar. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-13094-4 .
  • Michael Connelly: The Last Coyote . From the American by Norbert Puszkar. Heyne, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-453-43181-2 .
  • Michael Connelly: The Last Coyote . From the American by Norbert Puszkar. Knaur, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-426-43232-7 (e-book edition).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Connelly: The Last Coyote . Knaur, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-426-43232-7 , chapter 12.
  2. ↑ The Last Coyote Lost Chapter: 1961 on Michael Connelly's website .
  3. ↑ Kirkus Review: The Last Coyote
  4. ^ Publishers Weekly: The Last Coyote
  5. ^ Charles Champlin: A Maverick Cop Brimming With Troubles and Feeling: The Last Coyote by Michael Connelly LA Times, August 22, 1995
  6. ↑ Archive link to the Dilys Award, archive date: August 26, 2008.
  7. ^ Winners and Nominees 1990s of the Anthony Award at Bouchercon.
  8. ↑ Macavity Awards at stopyourekillingme.com.
  9. ^ The Hammett Prize: Past Winners, Nominees, and Judges at the International Association of Crime Writers.
  10. ^ BOSCH TV on Michael Connelly's website .