Harry Bosch is back

Janet Maslin in the New York Times gives a glowing review to Michael Connelly's latest Harry Bosch mystery, The Narrows, which takes its name from a portion of the L.A. River near Griffith Park.

Michael Connelly's best crime novel since "City of Bones," unfolds within his increasingly seductive world. Based in Los Angeles, it is an expanding realm of fictitious and real characters, of new narrative developments and ghostly echoes of earlier stories. Its central concerns remain the stuff of detective stories. But more and more, this place has come to resemble Mr. Connelly's version of Middle Earth.

To be sure there are plenty of mystery writers who devise recurring characters and let their paths cross. But Mr. Connelly's central figures are becoming more mythic than most, not only for their single-minded decency but also for the stubborn resilience they display. Even when the author waxes a shade purple about the nature of evil, his vision remains rivetingly spare.

Connelly cut his cop chops covering the police beat for the L.A Times in the Valley. He now lives in Florida. His website.