Thursday 21 March 2013

The Black Box by Michael Connelly

Harry Bosch is working in the Open Unsolved Unit trying to solve the case of a Danish Journalist shot dead during the L.A riots in 1992. Finding evidence or eyewitness for riot cases are hard enough, but as years pass by wouldn't it be impossible to solve. Bosch is not one to take no for an answer. With advancement in technology on his side, Bosch finds a lead, matching the bullet casings to another case. With this little bit of evidence, Harry works doggedly despite pressure from his bosses to stop the case or pursue it after sometime. Harry's bosses do not want him to solve the murder of the only White dead woman in the riots when hundreds of Blacks were killed during the riots. But our Hieronymus Bosch is not one to be stopped by politics. He is passionate about cases he is working, and he wants justice done.

This is a police procedural, where Bosch works persistently and thoroughly looking into various angles, looking for any leads that would help him solve the case. He looks into small leads, that at the outset look unimportant, like a call made at the tenth anniversary of the riots to find out if the case is still open. With almost practically nothing in the beginning to hunting the perps in the dramatic end, it is interesting.

In the home front, Bosch teenager daughter wants to become a detective and Bosch takes her to play a Simulation game for police detectives testing their decision making skills. The simulation game sounds really really interesting, wish I could play it too. Every case has a Black box, if you find it the case is solved. But you need somebody like Bosch who works doggedly to find the Black Box.


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