Hello beautiful people! Welcome back to a new review! For this review, I get into a series I haven’t gotten into before. It is the Harry Bosch series or Harry Bosch Universe by Michael Connelly. Openly I don’t tend to do this. I don’t start a series without checking out earlier books. But I picked this one up at my local little library and tried it nonetheless. I had kind of heard of the Harry Bosch character before. I think there’s a movie or TV show based on the series that’s come across my way before. Getting into The Black Box, book #16, was an interesting introduction to the series. So let’s get into it!
Main Characters:
- Harry Bosch: Long time Detective with the LAPD who is looking into a cold case that he was involved in as a young rookie 20-some years ago, is desperate to find out why someone would want to have murdered this young journalist even if it means trouble in his own career
- Anneke Jespersen: A young journalist from Denmark who came to L. A seemingly to report on the riots going on there in the 90s, was found dead by Harry and his team working for the rioting crowd in an alleyway, due to the time of her murder and the chaos in the city her murder was never solved, Harry wants to revive it in the hopes of bringing answers to her family
My Review
Getting into The Black Box by Michael Connelly I was very aware I was diving into a long-winded series without much understanding of the characters or past lore in the books. I can say though that without any understanding of the series or characters I really didn’t feel lost. I felt like there were maybe a few things from the past books I was missing. These few things spoke to how some of the relationships between characters in this book are. However, I didn’t feel in the dark the whole time or anything. I am also not sure if the case in this book is related to earlier ones. Maybe the case came up in previous books. The book does speak to this being a case that Harry was connected to in his rookie days. Maybe that was too early for when the series started. If it was, you would never know. I enjoyed the looks in the past of Harry’s early days in the force. This is the first book in the series I’ve read. I felt like it helped me get a bit more of a look into him and what kind of cop he is/was.
While the mystery itself in the book is enjoyable it was a bit overly complicated in my opinion, so when it came to the rating I landed on a 7/10. The Black Box follows Harry Bosch as he tackles a cold case that’s a bit personal to him. As a young rookie in the LAPD Harry was assigned to work on a crew during the riots that overtook the city. Essentially just trying to keep the peace as much as possible. It’s horrifying when they stumble across the body of a young woman in an alleyway. At the time not knowing that this case would remain cold for decades to come Harry and his crew have to leave her body to go handle more pressing matters. It never progressed again from that point until 20-some years later the chief wants the cold case files from the riots handled in hopes of bringing some answers to people who have been waiting a long time. Harry of course instantly gravitates to the Anneke Jespersen case from his early days in the hopes of getting some questions answered that he has had for a long time. Not originally from the United States and working as a travelling journalist it was presumed Anneke was in LA speaking on the riots and somehow got swept up in something that she shouldn’t have, or saw something that she shouldn’t have. In his drive to find answers for Anneke’s family Harry finds that her death may have been a part of something much larger than he could have imagined diving into conspiracies, politics, and cover-ups. The question becomes who did it, and why Anneke?
Getting into The Black Box I did enjoy the mystery and was swept up in the passion that Harry had for the case, his connection to it, and finding Anneke’s killer. On the surface, the mystery does not seem like much, riots, dead lady in the alley, it is either random or not. What got me tripped up is what comes later in the books in connection to it all. I just got a little lost. The mystery isn’t overly complicated, but it definitely is a little, and I struggled to see for the longest time what it was about Anneke that landed her dead in that alleyway. It just felt like it took a little too long to finally get a bit of what was going on and when it does become clear, it’s openly not a really satisfying answer. Don’t get me wrong it’s a crime mystery and a person was murdered, nothing about why it happened was going to be pretty. While I didn’t hate the way the book ended I just genuinely wasn’t expecting it and thought it was going to be much more complicated given how much we went through to get to this point. I also felt like a bit of the mystery was pulled away from in this book to explain some internal stuff that’s going on with Harry and the bureau. I didn’t particularly mind it but given that I didn’t have much of a tie to Harry as a character I wasn’t overly interested in these parts and just wanted to get back to the mystery itself. I am sure these parts would be much more interesting to long-time readers though.
I enjoyed Harry as a main character and can of course see why this character has brought on such a long-winded and well-loved series. He’s gruff but also soft at the same time. It’s very clear in this book where he takes this edge of compassion and care when dealing with Anneke, her story, and the people in her life, but gets hard towards anyone who makes it hard or wants to stop him from finding the answers he’s looking for. He is a well-experienced police officer but he is still open-minded and willing to hear the right people out. I enjoyed following him along on this mystery and was definitely pulled to check out other reads in the future.
Have you read The Black Box by Michael Connelly or any other books in the Harry Bosch series or universe? What did you think?
*** Don’t go any further if you don’t want any spoilers ***
I kept thinking with everything that Harry was finding out about Anneke that it was going to be some big political cover-up or something and I mean it kind of was, but I kept feeling so tripped up in the book with everything that was going on I just hadn’t seen it going this way.
It turns out that Anneke was on some ship at one point that had some men from the army on it. She was attacked and raped by these men and then fled back home. Continuing to work she eventually decided to come back to America to confront her attackers and write a story on what happened to her, but they got to her first. Harry can find a connection between a group of military men who were working on the riots to them being on this boat Anneke was on. He finds out that she wasn’t really here for the riots but for them, and it was just good timing with the riots because they were able to use it to cover up what they did and shove her case into a spot where it would stay cold.
Like I said it wasn’t a bad ending but with everything we went through in this book I was just expecting it to be a bit more than this, but really though it fits everything well, and I guess it was a bit of a government cover-up like was being insinuated throughout the book, just not in the way one would expect.
I hope you enjoyed this review! Thank you for checking it out! Feel free to follow me on my socials @baddiebookreviews to be kept up to date for when I release a new review!
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