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Linguistically, I’m reading Ackerman, Farrell and Gregory Stump (2003) “Paradigms and periphrastic expression” in Sadler, Louisa and Andrew Spencer (eds) (2003) Projecting Morphology. Stanford: CSLI.

The Poet: finished.

Trunk Music: finished.

Blood Work: started.

I didn’t enjoy The Poet particularly, at least not as far as the main character was concerned. I couldn’t empathise with him; in fact, I disliked him and could not respect him. He’s a journalist for a newspaper,and he puts the story before the investigation of his twin brother’s death. He’s happy to get a story out even if it means the killer knows the authorities are onto him, and will therefore go into hiding. All he cares about is the exclusive with his name on it.

We’re back to Bosch in Trunk Music. Bosch is back from suspension and has just returned to the homicide table after spending some time at the burglary table - a demotion from homicide. Pounds has been replaced by Grace Billets, known as Bullets behind her back because of her no nonsense approach. Like Pounds, she’s purely administrative, but unlike Pounds, she knows when to keep away from an investigation.

Billets has noticed that the statistics have been falling since she started, compared with when Pounds was in charge. This is due in part to Pounds fiddling the figures, and to a general trend. To buck things up, she gets in a new detective with promise but destined for the Glass House, and makes the detectives work in threes instead of in twos. She takes Bosch off the burglary table, and puts him in charge of his threesome: his old partner, Edgar, plus the new girl, Rider. A case soon comes in.

A body is found in the boot of a car by a copper. The cop messes up the crime scene, leaving a fingerprint in the boot. The killing looks like a mob hit, but the organised crime squad don’t want to know. But they stick their noses in behind Bosch’s back anyway. Bosch finds out, of course, and wants to know why. The trail leads to Las Vegas, where Bosch is shocked to see a familiar face, who seems to know someone connected with the case.

It’s good to see Bosch get on with a superior officer, for once. Jerry Edgar’s inadequacies are highlighted by Rider’s good work. Towards the end, the pace is fast and furious, with a twist or two in the mix. Connelly may still be finding in his authoring feet in this book, with the lack of contractions found in ordinary speech tend not to be found, resulting in awkward, formal-sounding dialogue. Once he’s sorted this out, his books should flow pretty well. Of course, there’s a lot of American English and American English slang in there, as you might expect from a US work of fiction, which is often difficult for a British English speaker to understand. But that’s how it goes.

On the linguistics front, I’m reading Posner, Rebecca (1996) The Romance languages, Cambridge: CUP, belonging to the Cambridge Language Surveys series. I’m hopefully going to obtain some wonderful insights into the Romance languages.

I finished Michael Connelly’s The Last Coyote last night, and now it’s on to the next one, The Poet, or, Trunk Music, as the list at the beginning of The Poet would have you believe. All the other books have The Poet being next, though, and the dates tally: The Poet’s copyright date is 1996, Trunk Music’s is 1997.

Update (07/02/08): I should point out that The Poet isn’t about Harry Bosch, but Jack McEvoy, a crime reporter from Colorado.

I’m now onto The Last Coyote again.  It’s quite tedious because I read it not so long ago, and also, I don’t think it’s as fast-paced as, say, The Black Ice.  I had forgotten how exciting some of the Bosch books are.  Nevertheless, I’m hoping to get a better understanding of what happens in it, especially as I still remember who did it.

See also the previous review I made of this book.