Law and order in LA

When there isn't much on television, I sometimes watch "Law and order". It always amazes me – as non-American – how the American justice system works. Don't take me wrong, it'll probably has it benefits, but it also has many flaws. As with any legal system, the flaws make it interesting. With "Law and order" you get both sides of the system: police and prosecution. Yesterday I finished Michael Connelley's "Echo Park". This book is more about the 'police-side' of the American legal system. It concentrates solely on a case detective Harry Bosch would like to solve after 13 years. The prosecution-side is represented by McShea, the district attorney. It is election time and for him a lot is at stake with a high profile case.


It starts with Harry receiving a phone call to deliver the murder book of a cold case to McShea. Harry is not particularly fond of this request. The cold case is the one of Marie Gesto and he was involved in the original murder investigation. His partner and he never found who did it. They didn't even find Marie's body. In the thirteen years that follows, Harry is obsessed with the case. From time to time he retrieves the dossier from the archives for a fresh look. He is so obsessed that his suspect even fills a constraining order against him. And now he has to hand over the file to McShea. Why? Because recently the police arrested a serial murderer in Echo Park. This man - Raynard Waist – has confessed the murder of nine women, including Marie Gesto.


A uneasy partnership between Harry and McShea begins. It starts to unravel during a field trip to the buried body of Marie. In the woods, Waits escapes. With the help of his FBI-profiler friend Rachel Woods, he hunts for the escaped killer and the killer of Marie. After Waits escapes, Harry becomes more and more convinced that Waits did not kill Marie. Following some clues, Harry first believes it a trick by McShea to win the election. But the clues are multi-interpretable. In the end he does figure it out, but for me it has a stretch too much. First, Harry blames another cop, shot dead by Waits. Later it appears to be his own supervisor, Pratt. He approached Harry's original murder suspect, Garland, with an idea. He would get Harry of his back and in return receive a lot of money. The funny thing is that Harry never had enough evidence against Garland to even get a conviction. But somehow, Pratt can convince Garland and his father. Maybe I missed it, but it seems a bit illogical to me.

 
This book for me is an old fashion detective: it concentrates on doing research and focuses on finding the killer. There isn't much else. No strange phenomenon (like the Charlie Parker-series from John Connolley), no secret ancient organizations (like James Rollins) and no science lessons of any kind (like Dan Brown). No, it's just a detective and his hunt for a killer. Very plain and very simple. It makes a good read, although at times predictable. For instance, Harry gets a call from another cop, stating that Waits called Harry's partner during the investigation in Marie's disappearance. The call was entered in the murder book, but there never was any action following this call. Harry is in shock and can't believe he missed a vital clue thirteen years ago. I immediately knew this call was false and the murder book tempered with. Luckily, our Harry doesn't always follow the rules. He made a copy of the murder book when he resigned earlier. And voila, this copy doesn't state the call. He now knows the entry was false and only has to figure out who did it. Other example: he has to enter a specific building. In this building works, as a kind of manager, works the brother of his former partner. Of course he is more than willing to help. All a bit too coincidental, or just luck? A detective needs some luck, but this is a bit too lucky.
All in all a good read, and I'm going to read more by Michael Connelly