The Concrete Blonde by Michael Connelly
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"'That's justice,' she said nodding at the statue. "She does not hear you. She doesn't see you. She can't feel you and won't speak to you. Justice, Detective Bosch, is just a concrete blonde.'"

I had read Michael Connelly's The Concrete Blonde (1994) for the first time about 20 years ago and I liked it a lot. I have returned to it now and I like it much less after the second read. I still think that, for the most part, it is a very good read, but in no way a great, four-star novel. Why the change? Most likely, instead of maturing, I have turned into a crotchety, grumpy, and picky old guy, who is impossible to satisfy.

After a very strong beginning, where dramatic moments from four years earlier are replayed, the plot switches to the current time. Detective Hieronymus (Harry) Bosch is on a civil trial for killing an unarmed man. Bosch was sure the man was the notorious serial torturer and killer, the Dollmaker, who used to paint makeup on the faces of his victims. However, a body of a woman has just been found and a note delivered to the police station suggests that the Dollmaker is still at large and that Bosch had killed an innocent man. I think most readers will agree that the setup is interesting and promising.

Things get even better. The novel is structured around two parallel, interconnected threads: the "legal thriller" that follows Bosch's trial and the police procedural, in which Bosch investigates the newest killing and discovers crucial new aspects of the original Dollmaker case. Another "concrete blonde" appears in the plot. Both the courtroom drama and the procedural are top notch: the threads are interesting and plausible. I particularly like the clever interplay between the two storylines. Even the "romantic" thread, about Bosch's relationship with Sylvia, does not sound cheap or sentimental.

Yet, as the plot nears the culmination with its mandatory merge of the two threads, the author yields to the pressure of readers' expectations. Readers want plot twists, don't they? So let's give them a twist. One is not enough? Let's give them another one. Still not enough? Let's give them yet another one.

Alas, the avalanche of twists is accompanied by a series of feel-good passages - the author describes Bosch's good deeds, such as helping the helpless and the unlucky, righting the wrongs, punishing the evil, and making a laughingstock of incompetent superiors. So, while at about three-fourth of the novel, my rating was full four stars, the ridiculously sharp plot twists and all the artificially uplifting and crowd-pleasing snippets of the story bring the rating down.

Three-and-a-half stars.


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