Trunk Music
Michael Connelly
437 pages
published in 1997

Harry Bosch is a Los Angeles cop, finally back in the Homicide division after eighteen months working burglary cases, working his first new case. Some guy is found dead, locked up in the trunk of his own car by the side of the road. At first glance it looks like a mob killing, a case of "trunk music", but of course things aren't as simple as that...

Like Seven Up, Trunk Music is more hardboiled than the sort of detectives I normally read. Also like Seven Up, this was recommended to my by Sandra, who is far more into this genre than I am. As usual with her recommendations, or at least with those I mention here, it was a good one. I rather liked this novel, in part because it felt realistic. Trunk Music was slow to start I found, but gradually drew me in. Michael Connelly does not read as easily as Ian Rankin, but it was worthwhile perservering with this novel.

Besides, you got to like a writer who has the audacity to name his hero Hieronimus Busch...