Echo Park (Connelly)

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Echo Park (English: Echo Park) is the 17th novel by the American crime novelist Michael Connelly , the 12th novel in the Harry Bosch series. It was published in 2006, with a German translation in 2008.

action

In 1993 Harry Bosch and his partner Jerry Edgar investigated the Marie Gesto case. Marie was missing. Her car and clothes turned up in a garage by an apartment building in Hollywood, but her body was never found. Bosch and Edgar had identified a likely culprit - Anthony Garland, son of the wealthy and powerful industrialist Thomas Rex "T-Rex" Garland. Anthony Garland had been in a relationship with a woman who looked a lot like Gesto and who had broken up with him because of his rude behavior. She lived in the apartment where Gesto's car was found. Despite repeated questioning of Anthony Garland, the two investigators were unable to confirm their suspicions. But Bosch did not let go of the case. In the period that followed, Bosch repeatedly tried to convict Garlang - but in vain.

13 years later. Bosch had quit the LAPD , but came back and is now working at the renowned Open-Unsolved Unit in the Parker Center in downtown Los Angeles with his partner Kizmin "Kiz" Rider. During a random traffic check in the Echo Park district , body parts were discovered in a Reynard Wait's van. Detective Freddy Olivas is handling the case and Richard O'Shea is the prosecutor in charge. Waits wants to avoid the death penalty by confessing to other murders to authorities. Including the one to Marie Gesto. Bosch is skeptical, but agrees to an agreement with Waits, because he apparently knows the perpetrator in the Gesto case.

Bosch brings the files on the Marie Gesto case to his ex-girlfriend Rachel Walling, an FBI agent and former profiler. Walling points out that Raynard Waits may not be his real identity. Reynard is an unusual name that reminds Walling of the French word for fox, renard . It also seems strange to Bosch and Walling why Waits claims to have the body of Gesto buried in Echo Park, when the nearby Griffith Park would have been better suited to hide human remains.

During questioning, Waits confesses to two murders, including that of Maire Gesto. Waits has already agreed to take the police to her body. Bosch, O'Shea, Rider, Olivas, a videographer, and a team of forensic scientists take Waits and his attorney Maury Swann to a remote location in Beachwood Canyon, where he leads them to human remains buried in a shallow grave. Because the path is very steep and slippery, O'Shea orders that Waits' handcuffs be removed. Waits takes this opportunity to grab Olivas' weapon. He shoots one of the police officers accompanying him, kills Olivas and seriously injures Rider. Bosch manages to call paramedics and stop Rider's bleeding. Her condition stabilized in the hospital. The forensic scientists confirm that the human remains found are indeed those of Marie Gesto.

Bosch discovers that the route to Gesto's body was marked. He also notices that the Gesto case file had been manipulated. He suspects Olivas and O'Shea.

Together with Walling, he finds out Waits' whereabouts. He has caught a woman again and is holding her in a tunnel. Bosch can issue waits. Waits admits that his attorney, Maurice Swann, orchestrated the false confession. Bosch is able to prevent Waits from murdering the prisoner. Bosch shoots Waits in this conflict. Bosch received no clear evidence from Waits as to who initiated the plot.

Bosch confronts O'Shea with his suspicions, who firmly reject everything. Jerry Edgar tells Bosch that he was shadowed by his supervisor Abel Pratt during the investigation.

Bosch reconsiders his suspicions and concludes that the files were most likely altered by Pratt and that Oliva and O'Shea, like himself, were deceived. The only question is, why would Pratt take such a risk shortly before retirement. Bosch shadows Pratt and finds that Pratt is cheating on his wife with a much younger woman. With Garland's money, Pratt wanted to "sweeten" his retirement.

Bosch and Walling arrest Pratt from attorney Swann, with whom he had orchestrated the false testimony from Waits. Pratt offers Bosch a deal: If he gets away with it, he'll provide all the evidence to show that the Garlands were behind the plot. Reluctantly, Bosch agrees because he thinks it pays to release Pratt to finally catch Marie Gesto's killer. To catch the Garlands, Pratt meets them in Echo Park; he demands more money. An FBI team is recording the conversation. Now they have proof that “T-Rex” Garland paid Pratt $ 1 million to blame his son Reynard Waits for the crime. Anthony Garland follows Pratt and shoots him. A moment later, the FBI catches Garland and shoots him when he doesn't surrender.

Cross references

Reynard Waits was a former client of Mickey Haller, the lawyer in The Client . In Echo Park, however, readers do not yet find out that Mickey Haller is Harry Bosch's half-brother.

background

The novel begins with the missing Marie Gesto's car being found in the garage of the High Tower Apartments in Hollywood in 1993. In the film Death Knows No Return by Robert Altman , based on the novel The Long Farewell to Raymond Chandler , Philip Marlowe, Chandler's character the lonely private detective, lives in the High Towers Apartments. And Chandler himself lived there too. Michael Connelly was living with his family in Florida when Echo Park was published, but he kept coming back to Los Angeles for several days to research his novels. Connelly then lives in Chandler's former apartment, a place of inspiration for him.

Michael Connelly wanted to show Harry Bosch in a new light in Echo Park: “Harry is often so sure of himself and his instincts that he is even arrogant about them. Something I had not yet discovered with him was self-doubt. "

Michael Connelly had a film produced that depicts the plot of the first chapter and ends with the sentence “Read what happens next in” followed by the cover of the book. The nearly 10-minute long film was published on YouTube on September 20, 2006. It is considered the first announcement of a book through a trailer.

reception

Kirkus Review finds that Connelly in Echo Park overwhelmingly demonstrates that "a true detective wholeheartedly accepts his cases, no matter what it costs him or anyone else". Publishers Weekly judges that the confident style and the plausible drawing of the characters, including the minor characters, make the novel stand out from other cop or serial killer novels. The New York Times thinks that Connelly succeeded in actually weaving not so very surprising elements into a surprisingly suspenseful story. Dick Lochte, himself an author of detective novels, thinks the novel is worth reading because it contains the elements "clear prose, a clever mix of character and story, sophisticated twists, bright arcs of suspense and surprising extras".

The Krimicouch thinks that Connelly manages to "breathe new life into the worn figure of the serial killer". The novel is fast-paced, contains intimate knowledge of police procedures and skilfully incorporates the author's knowledge of the "political conditions that are specific to Los Angeles and are marked by clique and corruption".

expenditure

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b August Brown: Inside Investigation in: LA Times October 18, 2006
  2. ↑ a b Janet Maslin: Imagine if This Guy Really Existed in: New York Times, October 16, 2006
  3. ↑ Trailer for Echo Park, published September 20, 2006 on YouTube YouTube: Michael Connelly's Echo Park
  4. ↑ BookTrailer 101 ™ - Learn how to create a Book Trailer Page about the trailer for Echo Park
  5. ↑ Kirkus Review: Echo Park by Michael Connelly
  6. ^ Publishers Weekly: Echo Park
  7. ↑ Dick Lochte: Twists, turns in 'Echo Park' in: LA Times, October 21, 2006
  8. ^ Michael Drewniok: A cop in the vortex of corruption and killer ticks crime thriller couch.de, December 2008