Michael Connelly has been attracting fans by the droves with his hard-boiled, edgy thrillers. A former crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times, Connelly combines a poet's ear for language with a deep understanding of the criminal mind to create dark, dramatic stories that raise the thriller genre to a new level.

In Blood Work, Connelly introduces a new character, Terry McCaleb, who was a top man at the FBI until a heart ailment forced his early retirement. Now he lives a quiet life, nursing his new heart and restoring the boat on which he lives in Los Angeles Harbor. Although he isn't looking for any excitement, when Graciela Rivers asks him to investigate her sister Gloria's death, her story hooks him immediately: the new heart beating in McCaleb's chest is Gloria's.

As McCaleb investigates the evidence in the case, the suspected randomness of the crime gives way to an unsettling suspicion of a twisted intelligence behind the murder. Soon McCaleb finds himself on the trail of a killer more horrifying than anything he ever encountered before.


From Publishers Weekly
Connelly follows up Trunk Music with a tautly paced, seductively involving thriller about a murder that is less random than it seems. Ex-FBI agent Terry McCaleb is recuperating from a heart transplant when beautiful Graciela Rivers walks up to his San Pedro houseboat, tells him that the donor of his new heart, her sister Gloria, was murdered in a convenience-store robbery and asks him to find the killer. Although his doctor warns him against it, McCaleb can't resist the case (any more than he could resist the serial-murder cases that caused his heart attack in the first place). With no license and little cooperation from the police, McCaleb reviews the evidence and connects a second murder to Gloria's killer. But it's only when he discovers that souvenirs have been taken from the victims that McCaleb realizes he is dealing with a type of killer with which he is all too familiar. Even working with seemingly shopworn material, Connelly produces fresh twists and turns, and, as usual, packs his plot with believable, logical surprises. He adds a moral twist by establishing a frightening bond between the hunter and the hunted, intimately connecting his detective to the criminal's guilt. Fans of Connelly's Harry Bosch novels will feel right at home with this beautifully constructed, powerfully resonating thriller, and newcomers will see right away what all the fuss has been about. Author tour. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Having made the best sellers lists with The Poet, Connelly waves goodbye to protagonist Harry Bosch and welcomes former FBI agent Terrill McCaleb, in retirement after a heart transplant. But he's back in action when he learns that the woman from whom he received the heart was murdered.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Anyone who's read John Douglas's nonfictional works on serial killers can tell that the convenience store murder at the beginning of this thriller is no random act. Why does it take former FBI profiler Terry McCaleb so long to get the picture? Even veteran narrator Dick HIll cannot elevate this histrionic plot. Earnest, yet hard-boiled, he aptly portrays the retired G-man, who is recovering from a heart transplant. However, his pot-smoking driver sounds like a cross between Cheech (or is it Chong?) and Kato Kaelin. And the two female characters--though recognizably Hispanic--sound vulnerable to the point of helplessness, a portrayal at odds with their take-charge professions: a nurse and a cop. E.K.D. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Once the point man for FBI serial-killer hunts in Los Angeles, Terry McCaleb is now retired. He's also recovering from heart-transplant surgery, made necessary, at least in part, by the pure evil, madness, and inhumanity his work forced him to confront. His routine--monitoring his temperature, taking his meds, and puttering on his boat--is upset when Graciela Rivers asks him to investigate her sister's death in a convenience-store robbery. McCaleb refuses until Graciela tells him that he is alive because he received her dead sister's heart. Painstaking investigation convinces McCaleb that Graciela's sister wasn't the chance victim of a robbery gone bad; she was the target. Painstaking investigation also irritates the dickens out of the LAPD and ultimately the bureau, and Terry realizes that he is being manipulated. By the time he is about to be indicted as the killer, he learns an even more shattering truth. Blood Work is solid entertainment but not up to Connelly's last two novels: The Poet (1996) and the superb Trunk Music (1997). Frankly, many readers will see the shattering truth coming a long time before the sleuth does. That shouldn't keep libraries from buying the book, but this reviewer is looking forward to the return of Connelly's LAPD detective, Harry Bosch. Thomas Gaughan


From Kirkus Reviews
Another of Connelly's volcanic lawmen confronts his nightmare double--the killer whose brutal crime saved the hero's life. Two years after a bad heart sidelined him from the FBI, Terry McCaleb gets another chance, and another heart, thanks to Gloria Torres, shot in a convenience store holdup. McCaleb's well on the way to recovery when Gloria's sister, emergency room nurse Graciela Rivers, tells him who donated his new heart and begs him to reopen Gloria's stalled case. The job seems impossible--after all, what kinds of clues could the LAPD or McCaleb dig up on a random crime of opportunity?--but longtime fans of Connelly's nailbiters (Trunk Music, 1997, etc.) will know that the holdup is anything but random. They won't be surprised when McCourt, scrutinizing a videotape of the robbery, picks up telltale details the cops never spotted, or when he sees that Gloria's murder is only part of a pattern of killings. From here on in, though, it's best not to say too much about Connelly's bag of tricks. Once the suspect McCaleb's confronted attacks him (painful stuff for a convalescent whose cardiologist warned him that the excitement of the chase alone was enough to put him back in the hospital) and takes off, McCaleb, fortified by his budding romance with Graciela and his delight in Gloria's seven-year-old son Raymond, hunkers down with a jumble of surveillance tapes, fortuitous eyewitnesses and earwitnesses, and tiny discrepancies that open up big breaks in the case. But the closer McCourt gets to his quarry, the more closely he fits the profile of the killer himself--a coincidence not lost on the cops who've resented his involvement all along. A tormented hero, a canny and malicious killer, endlessly patient detective work alternating with dark threats and tense action scenes: Connelly seems bent on wiring together every clich of the mano-a-mano genre and juicing them till they sing. (Film rights to Warner Bros.; author tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Terrell McCaleb has been one of the brightest and most effective serial-killer investigators in the history of the FBI. But when he's sidelined by a heart-transplant operation, McCaleb decides to trade in his badge for a full-time position restoring his treasured yacht. But that proves short-lived, for soon Garciella Rivers, who is mourning her sister's brutal murder, convinces McCaleb to help her hunt down the elusive killer. Now that McCaleb is on the trail of an unpredictable and extremely dangerous madman, his own life is on the chopping block.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Blood Work -- that's what Terrell McCaleb used to call his job at the FBI. Until a heart condition forced him to take early retirement, he headed all investigations of serial murders in the Los Angeles area. Now he is recovering from a heart transplant operation and leads a quiet life. But McCaleb's calm seas turn rough when a story in the L.A. Times brings him face-to-face with Graciela Rivers, a darkly intriguing woman who hooks him with the story of her sister's unsolved murder. Against doctor's orders and his own better judgement, McCaleb agrees to take up the case. Soon Terry is on the trail of a killer whose crimes are more baffling and horrifying than anything he has ever encountered. It's a mind-bending, breakneck case that leads McCaleb into the darkest place he's ever known, unsure whether he even wants to survive his own investigation.

SYNOPSIS

March 1998

In Blood Work, New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly departs from his crime novels featuring LAPD Harry Bosch and introduces Terry McCaleb, a retired FBI agent with a bad heart from years of tracking down criminals. After an emergency heart transplant, McCaleb withdraws to his sailboat in the Cabrillo marina to comfortably recover. Weeks after his surgery, he discovers that he is alive because of a tragic crime. The heart of a murder victim beats behind the ropy scar on his chest -- and, as the living remains of the murder victim, it becomes his mission to solve the crime.

The plot twists, and it becomes clear that the police must have overlooked something. As the horrors unfold, McCaleb realizes that he is tracking a killer whose crimes are as baffling and horrifying as anyone he ever encountered at the FBI. Blood Work is at its core a film-noir tale of good, evil, and retribution. A crime novel that will send a chill down your spine and make you turn on all the lights in the house, Blood Work deservedly stands tall in Connelly's roster of impressive novels.

FROM THE CRITICS

Los Angeles Times

The top of the class of new mystery writers.

Lambert - People

Compelling. . .A spine-tingling manhunt guaranteed to boost the blood pressure.

Paul Skenazy - Washington Post Book World

A wonderfully taut read.

A richly detailed and totally absorbing thriller. . . .Be prepared to read this one straight through. It's that good. Chicago Tribune

Lambert