Michael Connelly, whose novel The Poet won the 1997 Anthony Award for Best Mystery, is already recognized as one of the smartest and most vivid scribes of the hard-boiled police procedural. Now, with his much-anticipated sixth Harry Bosch novel, Angels Flight, Connelly offers one of the finest pieces of mystery writing to appear in 1998. Bosch is awakened in the middle of the night and, out of rotation, he is assigned to the murder investigation of the high-profile African American attorney Howard Elias. When Bosch arrives at the scene, it seems that almost the entire LAPD is present, including the IAD (the Internal Affairs Division). Elias, who made a career out of suing the police, was sadistically gunned down on the Angels Flight tram just as he was beginning a case that would have struck the core of the department; not surprisingly, L.A.'s men and women in blue become the center of the investigation. Haunted by the ghost of the L.A. riots, plagued by incessant media attention, and facing turmoil at home, Bosch suddenly finds himself questioning friends and associates while working side by side with some longtime enemies.

Angels Flight is a detective's nightmare scenario and is disturbingly relevant to the racially tense last decade of the 20th century. Amidst the twists and turns of his complex narrative, Connelly affirms his rightful place among the masters of contemporary mystery fiction. --Patrick O'Kelley


From Publishers Weekly
Hollywood homicide detective Hieronymous (Harry) Bosch (Trunk Music, 1996, etc.) is up to his very stiff neck in politics, police corruption and racial tension. The echo of the Rodney King case is almost deafening when Howard Elias, an African American lawyer famous for suing the LAPD for racially motivated brutality, is shot dead on the short train run up a steep hill in downtown L.A. known as Angels Flight. Bosch and his team?a black woman named Kizmin Rider and a black man named Jerry Edgar?are assigned the highly sensitive case. Although Bosch sniffs racial and departmental political hokum among the brass, he doggedly focuses on finding the killer, knowing that cops will be among the suspects. It all smells even worse when Bosch discovers signs of evidence tampering by the first cops on the crime scene and learns that the civilian attorney assigned to oversee the investigation had personal ties to Elias. A bit of a cowboy anyway, Bosch is even more ornery than usual, since his wife has gone AWOL and returned to gambling. Further hampered by a secretive and even obstructive departmental leadership and by his former partner's apparent links to the crime, Bosch moves well outside the rules to discover the ugly motivation for the killing. Connelly has all the hard-boiled procedural moves down and gives Bosch a reckless crusader's moral code. The finale, set against riots, delivers a brutal, anti-establishment sort of justice. This isn't Connelly's best; the plot is sufficiently ornate to diffuse tension, and Bosch seems to be evolving from the true character of early books into a sort of icon, a Dirty Harry for our times. Simultaneous Time Warner audio; author tour. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
A lawyer prominent for filing lawsuits against the Los Angeles Police Department that charge brutality and racism in its treatment of African Americans is murdered, and it is up to detective Harry Bosch to conduct an investigation that will seem fair to all sides. He uncovers an unusually tangled web of crime and corruption reminiscent of the complexity seen in James Ellroy's fiction. Connelly's (Blood Work, Audio Reviews, LJ 7/98) story is fascinating as a police procedural, a psychological portrait of the memorable Bosch, and a morality tale about the ways legal, political, and social forces can create unintentional conspiracies. In the end, most of the perpetrators are punished, though in unexpected ways, leaving only Bosch with the painful burden of the truth. Smoothly read by Dick Hill, Angels Flight is immensely satisfying as both a mystery and as serious literary fiction. Highly recommended for all collections.AMichael Adams, CUNY Graduate Ctr., New YorkCopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Los Angeles Book Review, January 17, 1999
Those who prefer first-class detective story might turn to Michael Connelly's ANGELS FLIGHT, which begins with a double murder on one of the cars of the short inclined tramway that carries people up and down Bunker Hill in downtown LA. One of the victims of the unknown shooter is a black celebrity lawyer who forged his fame and fortune by suing LAPD's finest for racism and brutality. Half the police force are suspects in his murder, half the city fears and the other half is ready to explode, and the investigation is plagued by lies, leaks, misdeeds and misdirections enough to satisfy the most exacting of readers.


From AudioFile
In this latest Harry Bosch mystery, the detective conducts his investi-gation against a treacherous political backdrop. The murder victim is a flamboyant black attorney who made his reputation suing the LAPD. With the city poised to riot, Bosch follows leads into the ugliest corners of his own department. Connelly has written an engrossing thriller, but the greatest asset of the book is a sharply drawn hero brought to life in Hill's reading. His Bosch is a thoroughly believable cop, but not in any clichŽd way. There is a wariness in Hill's charac-terization, a sense that this is a man who can be hurt, but not surprised. You wish him well, knowing you're probably wasting your time. M.O. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
In his compelling Harry Bosch novels, Connelly typically puts the onetime Vietnam tunnel rat turned LAPD detective into one tight spot after another. Here Harry is assigned to investigate a murder that threatens to set the city ablaze. African American attorney Howard Elias, who has become rich and famous suing LAPD for brutality, is murdered on the eve of his biggest case. Thousands of cops are likely suspects, and with the memory of the Rodney King incident fresh, police brass are looking for any kind of spin control they can find. Harry, last seen in the outstanding Trunk Music (1996), is promptly saddled with "assistance" from the Internal Affairs Division, the FBI, and LAPD's independently appointed inspector general, who Bosch soon learns was Elias' lover. To torque up the pressures as Bosch doggedly sorts red herrings and pursues the killer, Connelly has Harry's year-old marriage unraveling while he's trying to quit smoking. Two-thirds of the way through the book, the focus of the investigation changes to a celebrated child murder case and rich and powerful Internet pedophiles. Connelly makes all the necessary connections, but Bosch fans may feel that the author works too hard to create the tightest rat hole yet. Even so, Connelly at less than his best still merits attention. Thomas Gaughan

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
January 1998

Fallen Angels

With Angels Flight, Michael Connelly, the New York Times bestselling author of Blood Work and The Poet, returns to the bread-and-butter character -- the tough, no-holds-barred LAPD detective Harry Bosch -- who has virtually catapulted Connelly to the top of the gritty, police-procedural-thriller heap. Loaded with electrifying sequences, intriguing "NYPD Blue"-like big-city politics and procedures, and a killer plot stacked with high-speed twists and turns that'll keep you guessing until its very end, Angels Flight is an intense and terrific read.

Although Angels Flight was my first Connelly experience, I guarantee that it will not be my last. This novel really impressed me. Set in Los Angeles, the town where high-profile trials such as the O. J. Simpson and Rodney King affairs have captivated and scarred the nation in the '90s, Angels Flight serves up a compelling and highly sensitive double-murder investigation that has L.A.'s disgruntled black community setting its sights on the LAPD. When a controversial black lawyer (￯﾿ﾽ la Johnny Cochran), who has made an extremely lucrative career defending the rights of the city's slugs while prosecuting the beleaguered police force, is found murdered, the media immediately point their fingers at the LAPD, and rioting is once again in the air. Was it actually a cop with a killer vendetta? It's up to Harry Bosch to uncover the sick and shocking truth.

Howard Elias, a savior in the eyes of Los Angeles's black community, is a devil to the city's law-enforcement agencies. Notorious for fanning the fires of high-profile civil-rights cases in which cops are depicted as evil incarnate, out to keep the poor black man down, Elias sets fear and anger coursing through any cop's veins. Now, on the eve of an extremely volatile trial that has the police once again jammed between a rock and a hard place, Elias is dead, brutally shot on the deserted late-night Angels Flight train.

Nothing sits right for Harry Bosch and his team. First they're selected out of rotation to head up the Elias murder. Then they're forced to work with an internal affairs group that's headed by a "prick" named Chastain; on more than one occasion, Chastain has investigated Bosch for procedural wrongdoing. Then there's Deputy Chief Irving, who appears to be more interested in damage control than he is in uncovering the truth. Although the acrimony among the investigators is an inch thick at the start, they agree on one issue: A suspect -- or a patsy -- had better be named soon, or there's going to be some serious hell to pay.

Thus begins the whirlwind of action, intrigue, and blistering suspense that is forged so masterfully by the talented Connelly. The plot may sound straightforward, even clich￯﾿ﾽd, but the reader is in for a chilling surprise. Each page reveals another potential suspect, startling discovery, death, or seemingly unmovable obstacle or distraction. During one 30- or 40-page sequence, the reader is bounced around so much that the publisher should include a warning label alerting those prone to motion sickness to keep their Dramamine nearby. Take nothing at face value: Friends may be enemies; enemies may be friends. The plot really keeps you guessing. If you enjoy hard-boiled police procedurals or just expertly written roller-coaster rides of suspense, give Angels Flight a read. You won't be disappointed.

--Andrew LeCount

FROM THE PUBLISHER

At the foot of Angels Flight, an inclined railway in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, a lawyer is found murdered on the eve of a landmark trial. Howard Elias's lawsuits charging the LAPD with racism and brutality made him a celebrity - even as his success earned him the hatred of nearly every police officer in the city. When Harry Bosch is put in charge of the team investigating Elias's murder he knows that his colleagues are likely to be his chief suspects. He also knows that the city's smoldering racial tensions could ignite if he missteps. As he works night and day in the glare of a major media event, Bosch struggles with a more personally urgent mystery: trying to find out whether his wife's disappearance means she has left him for good or fallen deeper into a dangerous addiction. On streets filled with angry mobs, amid burning buildings and under fire from rooftop snipers, Bosch must find the one answer that will make sense of the case's strangely unconnected pieces - exposing himself to grave danger in the hope of saving his job, his marriage, and his city.

SYNOPSIS

Angels Flight reads in a white heat. It continues to up the ante of the series that is "raising the hard-boiled detective novel to a new level . . . adding substance and depth to modern crime fiction." (Boston Globe)

FROM THE CRITICS

Philip Oakes

Exciting, authentic, grimly satisfying. -- Literary Review

Christoph Klock

You will turn pages as fast as you can. Thenwhen you finishyou will be a bit wiser about the human condition. If you have read earlier Harry Bosch novelsAngels Flight is a must-read now. If you have missed the earlier booksyou might want to start with The Black Echo and The Black Ice"keepers" available in paperback. —The Mystery Reader.com

Marilyn Stasio - New York Times Book Review

Bosch is a wonderful old-fashioned hero who isn't afraid to walk through the flames — and suffer the pain for the rest of us.

USA Today

Michael Connelly is one of those masters...who can keep driving the story forward in runaway locomotive style.

Pam Lambert - People Magazine