The Printed Page

Title: 9 Dragons (Harry Bosch, book #14)
Author/website: Michael Connelly
374 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Publication date: October ’09
Genre: Suspense, thriller, police procedural
Would I recommend it: Yes, yes, and a yes.
I loved it! Mr. Connelly is an author on my auto-buy list so it could be I’m a bit bias. Harry Bosch and I first got together in 1992 and we’ve had a very intense yet immensely satisfying relationship over the years. Harry has had his share of issues providing highs and lows in his career and personal life. Harry is good detective who tends to go cowboy if the means justify the end. 9 Dragons provides plenty of room for Harry to wander off and create a bit more havoc in his life. If he hopes to solve the case and save loved ones he needs to skip the slow boat China and take a fast plane to Hong Kong. He is chasing a case that takes him overseas and back and his personal life intrudes smack into the middle of it big time. Harry is forced to grapple with a death that shakes his world. His daughter’s disappearance brings him closer to a child he knows little about and loves beyond measure. And finally the case forces him to face prejudices that go back to his years of service in the Vietnam war as tunnel rat creating trust issues with fellow detectives. 9 Dragons has a bit of everything and entertains page after page. If you’re a Harry Bosch fan you’ll love 9 Dragons.

LAPD Detective Harry Bosch is off the chain in the fastest, fiercest, and highest-stakes case of his life.

Fortune Liquors is a small shop in a tough South L.A. neighborhood, a store Bosch has known for years. The murder of John Li, the store’s owner, hits Bosch hard, and he promises Li’s family that he’ll find the killer.

The world Bosch steps into next is unknown territory. He brings in a detective from the Asian Gang Unit for help with translation–not just of languages but also of the cultural norms and expectations that guided Li’s life. He uncovers a link to a Hong Kong triad, a lethal and far-reaching crime ring that follows many immigrants to their new lives in the U.S.

And instantly his world explodes. The one good thing in Bosch’s life, the person he holds most dear, is taken from him and Bosch travels to Hong Kong in an all-or-nothing bid to regain what he’s lost. In a place known as Nine Dragons, as the city’s Hungry Ghosts festival burns around him, Bosch puts aside everything he knows and risks everything he has in a desperate bid to outmatch the triad’s ferocity.