Book Review: Echo Park by Michael Connelly (Harry Bosch 12)

I can remember buying this book from Ottakers in hardback shortly after it came out in 2006 in Maidenhead, my home town. Sadly Ottakers is no longer there and I miss browsing that bookstore and sitting in the upstairs sofas. Happy days.

This novel finds Harry Bosch back with the LAPD but now pushing sixty years old. He is working with his partner Kiz Rider in the Open-Unsolved Unit.

Echo Park is in Los Angeles and a traffic stop in that area throws up Reynard Waits who is discovered to have body parts on the front seat of his car. Waits confesses to two crimes one that is a throwback to the 1992 LA riots and the other is a cold case that Harry Bosch had been working on years before, concerning a young equestrian called Marie Gesto. Her clothes were discovered but her body was never found.

Harry considered at the time that the likely killer was the son of a wealthy man so he is surprised to hear of Wait's confession to the killing. He digs back into the case and discovers that his old partner Jerry Edgar had made some errors on the case and Waits could have been apprehended at the time, a lead that was not properly followed up.

Waits leads the police to the grave or Marie Gesto but escapes during this visit. However, more twists are added to the mix by Michael Connelly. Did Waits really murder Marie Gesto or was he just in on the know as to her burial site?

You will need to read this novel to find out.

I really enjoyed this novel and 9/10 for me.