[asmb] Book Club discussion

The Black Echo

Synposis:

For LAPD homicide cop Harry Bosch — hero, maverick, nighthawk — the body in the drainpipe at Mulholland Dam is more than another anonymous statistic. This one is personal.

The dead man, Billy Meadows, was a fellow Vietnam "tunnel rat" who fought side by side with him in a nightmare underground war that brought them to the depths of hell. Now, Bosch is about to relive the horror of Nam. From a dangerous maze of blind alleys to a daring criminal heist beneath the city to the torturous link that must be uncovered, his survival instincts will once again be tested to their limit.

Joining with an enigmatic and seductive female FBI agent, pitted against enemies inside his own department, Bosch must make the agonizing choice between justice and vengeance, as he tracks down a killer whose true face will shock him.

--------------------
Stats

Book: The Black Echo
Author: Michael Connelly
Pages: 496
Genre: Mystery, Suspense,
Nominator: Mary
Month: February 2011
BotM Number: 7

Alrighty, there she is. Now we normally have a spoiler free and a spoilers galore thread, but GoodReads recently added a spoiler tag. So, I think we'll try having one thread as it may lead to a bit more activity in the discussion.

Spoiler tag is:

< spoiler > < / spoiler>

Without the spaces though.

(view spoiler)[It'll look like this when you use it. (hide spoiler)]



I'm thinking of having a live chat for this after a couple weeks. That'll give people time to get the book and read it a bit. It's something that happened with the first book and I think it'd be good to start back up.

I was going to hang out in the spoiler free thread anyway, so one thread is ok with me. I haven't read this book since shortly after it came out so it'll be almost new for me. I'll try to get it picked up from the library this week so I can keep up. Also, I hope everyone likes this book.

I'm only like 20-30 pages in, but it's interesting so far. The only thing that I find annoying, greatly annoying, is that they keep using police code and I have no idea what it is.


It's interesting that this is about a guy that was a tunnel rat too. I just played Call of Duty: Blac Ops last week and there's a section in there where you are crawling through the tunnels during Vietnam. It definitely gives me more of a picture about what gives Bosch pause.

I'll look in the library here and see if we have it. I really need to finish last months book. I don't know why but its like I have issues reading something if I have a deadline. I keep putting it off haha. Odd I know

You lose a bit of freedom having a timeline and I think it's that loss that makes it hard. >.<

I have the same problem. XD

I think we're small enough to be flexible with our deadlines. I know I've been having trouble fitting in everything I need to read. I want to read them all but there's only so many hours in a day. I do plan on getting Black Echo tomorrow.

Dian: He's a pretty popular author so your library should have his books. It'll just depend on whether there's a copy available.

If at the end of the month people that are reading the book need more time, we can extend the period and hold off on choosing a March book - or any other months after this. I know I'll be a pretty busy reader in March anyway, there are a lot of sequels coming out then.

Well i think i've just hit a rut in reading new authors that i dont know, especially with last months BoTM cause its just weird. Last week I reread two books that i love and had no problem finishing them in just a few days each without even trying to read a lot a day. Hopefully i can get through Bladerunner by tomorrow. Its starting to get kinda interesting, but its still weird. And maybe by this weekend i can get to the library to check it out.

Mary: And just cause he is a popular author doesn't mean much to my library. there are several popular authors that they only have one or two books by. Thats the problem with small city libraries.

I live in a small city too (30,000) but we're lucky to be a regional library so we have more funding. We're the biggest town for 90 miles in a couple directions and those towns are the closest fellow metropolises. I truly live in the middle of nowhere. But I sorta lucked out with the library, I think the purchasing committee has similar tastes to mine when it comes to their discretionary spending. I find lots of books to check out.

yeah you're lucky then. The library I go to is our main branch in the county, but the pickings are slim for my tastes. I will go on thier web site to see if they have an author I like or a book thats been voted for here and none of the branches will have the book or anything by the authors. Its rather sad. But there have also been a lot of budget cuts to the library funding the past few years so thats probably the biggest issue.

I'm gonna have to go check out my library, just moved back here so I'm not sure the state it's in. That and I never really visited it before.



I'm having trouble making good progress in Black Echo. It's just.... dry, dry, dry. There's too much focus on details that don't matter too - like what streets people are driving down. Now, I don't mind this every once in a while, but when anyone goes anywhere. Oye.

Also, I'm not really liking this side story with Internal Affairs. I can't imagine the killer will end up one of those guys because of how much they hate Bosch, but I can't see any other reason to include the story. I'm really hoping it's not the case that one of them is the killer.

I finished this a couple days ago. I'll give the second book in the series a try at some point, but I don't know when. I hate to judge a series by it's first book.


Ending Spoiler (view spoiler)[I wasn't really surprised by Wish being in on the job. The way they made Harry's character, it just wasn't possible for him to stay in a relationship with this woman. He couldn't find someone he could trust this early in the series. It's a shame that the character type gave it away, I wouldn't have seen that coming otherwise. (hide spoiler)]

The whole IA thing still seemed just... I don't know. It didn't really serve a purpose. I'd rather have seen something like that take place once I knew the character and really believed in him than in the first book.




I do have one question - concerning the Doll Maker case. I'm not sure what Harry meant towards the end of the book when he told Wish she was wrong about him on that case. Did he kill the guy on purpose or not?

Would anyone like to have a live chat for this book?

JK wrote: "Also, I'm not really liking this side story with Internal Affairs. I can't imagine the killer will end up one of those guys because of how much they hate Bosch, but I can't see any other reason to include the story..."

I'm like a 100 pages from the end right now [which means I'll be done with it in an hour or so ;P ] so this is still all supposition on my part but I'm thinking using the IAD dorks was a red herring approach. Gives the readers someone to focus on who are easy to hate and makes the hero of the story that much more relatible - 'hey, people are hunting him for no real reason, I feel that way sometimes. I'm going to root for him now!'

And also (view spoiler)[MUSH! GAH! WTF. If I was a dude and -really- into the story, my bits would have fallen off at that point. More dirty city, less dirty hands please. -.-; (hide spoiler)]

I'm pretty sure that's all there was to that story.I don't know, though, they didn't make me like Harry anymore. If it had happened after I read a book or two with him, maybe it would have... but not with this first one.



Oh and I still have no idea what a black echo is. Yeah, he explained that that's they called the tunnels, but the name just doesn't make sense to me. What is the echo part about?

The black echo is that empty feeling that just closes in on you showing how truly alone you are at that moment especially since an echo is just a reply from yourself.

Both IAD and Irving show up in later books. The IAD story is a bit of laying foundation. The same with Eleanor. A lot of times in these books things that you've almost forgotten will pop up later and be included. I hope no one considers that spoilers. If you do, sorry.

About the police code JK, I knew what most of it was but that's because I'm a regular mystery reader. I didn't even consider that it would give people trouble. I hope you could get most of it from context.

I'm only on page 90 and I find I've forgotten almost everything from this book(I read it around 1993). If you do want to have a chat, I'd come but right now I'm busy again and I'm not sure when I'll have time to sit and finish the book. I will say this, it isn't as good as I remembered it but I think that's because it is a opening book in a series that also has books that branch off from it. I like the body of work. I look at The Black Echo as opening info. I still like the Black Echo but Connelly definitely becomes a better writer as he continues the series.

I can't tell you JK if you'd enjoy continuing with Connelly; I just know that a lot of readers rate him among their favorite(Mystery)authors.

Katt_goddess wrote: "The black echo is that empty feeling that just closes in on you showing how truly alone you are at that moment especially since an echo is just a reply from yourself."

That makes much more sense. I didn't really feel like the idea was conveyed well, but that is interesting. Especially with the explanation of the echo part.


Mary:

Yeah, I figured they would come back given the way the head of IAD comes in at the end. I still wish they were introduced in the second book at least though. Ah well, not much I can do about it, huh? :D


Some of it [police code] was easy to determine, but others... they were talking about completely different things so I was a bit lost. Most of it wasn't even concerning what was going on so it didn't matter much. When it was something related to what was going on... they usually dealt with it right after. I just hate that lost feeling right at the beginning of a book.


I'd probably try at least the next book or two. I hate dismissing an author and series by one book, especially when it's the intro to a series. I've also read a few reviews from the next book and a lot of people say it's a big improvement over the first.

Wow, I'm two book behind, though I've read Androids
before.
I'll see if I can get this at the library and try to catch up, but I'm being distracted currently by a
sudden interest in Irish folklore and Neil Gaiman. :D

Ah, Neil Gaiman. He's an interesting writer. I need to read a couple more of his books so I can decide what I think of the guy.

I don't have much else to say about the book but I noticed something I overlooked the first time I read though. The bit JK mentioned about outlining streets and such. I think he was trying to give a sense of the city and locations. The problem is if you've never lived in LA it all ends up being the way JK viewed it, useless information. I did live there for a short time and I could visualize the routes he was taking but it still wasn't absolutely necessary. It makes me wonder if he had a certain number of words he had to hit(j/k really but still.....). I look at it like a lot of the unnecessary world building I see. I just plow through it and get back to the good parts.

I had forgotten who the ultimate manipulator was, I suspected they were in on it but not behind it.

That probably was his intention and it was probably helpful for a lot of people, but... I'm completely lost when it comes to directions. If someone threw me into the middle of a city, I'd have no idea what to do. Sure I could ask for directions, but it'd do me no good. I'm completely lost without my GPS. >.<