Review: Another One Solved By Harry
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 15, 2014
Fans of Michael Connelly are familiar with his favorite main character, Detective Harry Bosch. In this story, Bosch is working Open-Unsolved murder cases in the Los Angeles Police Department. Their are eight teams in the unit. Each team is assigned specific years of responsibility. Their are more than 6,000 unsolved cases dating back to 1896.Bosch is assigned a case investigated and closed in 1992. An anonymous tip had called in stating only "that the victim "Billy" had been killed by a man named Patrick Sewell".Bosch remembered a case where a body had been found in the burned out remains of the Brown Derby restaurant destroyed in the 1992 riots. The body was that of 19yr. Old Billy Ratcliff.He checked recent records for the name Patrick Sewell and learned he was serving a life sentence for a murder commited in Orange County four years after the Billy Ratcliff killing. Both murders were similar in that the victims were homosexuals stabbed with a switchblade knife.The knife from the Ratcliiff murder was found in the evidence box. It was sent to forensics for a DNA test against Sewell's DNA from the Orange County murder. Urgency was requested since Sewell was due for a parole hearing in 6 months.The lab results confirmed that the knife contained the DNA of both Ratcliff and Sewell. Bosch thought that the DNA evidence cinched the case against Sewell but the Deputy District Attorney, nick named "The Lion" refused to file the case until Bosch had completed a full investigation. He would not take a case into court that was not "Bulletproof."The rest of the story line concerns Detective Bosch's quest to gather all the the evidence necessary to nail Sewell for the murder of Billy Ratcliff. There are some twists and turns here that make the quest interesting.Connelly is a master at police procedural stories and Harry Bosch is a legend among crime story detectives.This one is a gem. Highly recommended.Reviewed by Roger Shepherd