I almost couldn't believe the pace at which he was publishing these. It was like, "wait a minute, we just *had* a new book, where is this one coming from all of a sudden?!"
He said in that WP interview I'm linking to that he's hoping to be able to continue his run until we see "Maddie with a badge". Maybe he's afraid that age is not only catching up with Harry but also with himself?
You are absolutely right, Connelly´s descriptions of LA are excellent. I´ve never been to the city, but just reading his descriptions I can picture the town in all its glittering and grim glory.
I´m so glad that you are loving this series, Themis. Bodes well for my upcoming reading years in which I slowly will make my through the series :D.
There are a few books I like less than the others (e.g., "Nine Dragons" -- though you'll have a long way to go yet until you get there), but overall, the series has been one long exceptionally strong run ever since the 1990s, which is quite an achievement in and of itself IMHO.
And you'll probably get a vastly better sense of Los Angeles via Connelly's books than from a short visit as a tourist. When I was living there, I actively discouraged that sort of thing whenever it came up -- I kept telling people that either they had to be willing to commit to spending a serious amount of time there or they shouldn't bother at all. For one thing, that place is huge -- L.A. County covers the same space as the entire state of Schleswig-Holstein, and even in the City of Los Angeles itself you can easily spend 1 or 2 hours by car to get from point A to point B (and that's not even taking into account rush hour traffic jams, which will routinely extend a 10-minute drive at normal hours to a 1-hour slog; 10- and 12-lane freeways and 6- or 8-lane boulevards / avenues not withstanding). Add to that that the places you'd most likely want to see as a tourist are at a considerable distance from each other even by car -- and I don't mean London or Paris or, FWIW, New York City style distance but something else entirely; besides, forget public transport -- and the upshot of it all is that you'll spend most of your day in your car, trying to get somewhere instead of actually visiting; at least if you're trying to cram too many things into one day (or a 2- or 3-day visit tops). Then again, Los Angeles -- and Southern California generally -- is not actually so much about tourist sights to begin with. You have to spend some time there and just soak in the atmosphere ... if you don't allow space for that, you won't ever get to know it at all. And you can't achieve that if all you do is spend your time trying to run (or more likely, crawl) from one tourist sight to the next. So I hope you'll continue to enjoy your armchair visits ... they're as good a visit as anyone can pay the city, without even having to expend the air fare and travel time!
OMG! Love your reviews of these books! You line up with my comments on them as well. I am a bit apprehensive on how things are going to shake out after Dark Sacred Night.
Yes. While Bosch was still with the LAPD, I got antsy every time he was even traveling in California, outside the LAPD's realm -- he was always at least with half a foot seriously outside the boundaries of the law there. The Hong Kong thing was just a big "no-no" on those grounds alone; especially given that Harry was never big on liaising with the local force AND actually letting them run things anyway -- for however incompetent or lazy they might have seemed, he *was* moving on their turf. I realize this is a big part of his attraction (including to me), but however justified he may have been doing what he did in L.A., doing it elsewhere simply meant going rogue. -- And then ... I've only spent 10 days in Hong Kong, so I can't possibly claim to any sort of local expertise whatsoever, but even after those 10 days, I doubted if anybody actually *from* Hong Kong would have considered this an authentic portrayal. Which isn't to say Connelly made it all up of course -- the overcrowded tenements are real, including that building in Kowloon, the triads are real of course, and I've been to the part of the New Territories he describes and recognized it. But as ever, it's the "in between the lines" things that matter ... and he's just decidedly better at describing those in L.A., a city he does know inside out, than in Hong Kong. -- And let's not even start getting into the Eleanor Wish thing ...
He said in that WP interview I'm linking to that he's hoping to be able to continue his run until we see "Maddie with a badge". Maybe he's afraid that age is not only catching up with Harry but also with himself?
I´m so glad that you are loving this series, Themis. Bodes well for my upcoming reading years in which I slowly will make my through the series :D.
And you'll probably get a vastly better sense of Los Angeles via Connelly's books than from a short visit as a tourist. When I was living there, I actively discouraged that sort of thing whenever it came up -- I kept telling people that either they had to be willing to commit to spending a serious amount of time there or they shouldn't bother at all. For one thing, that place is huge -- L.A. County covers the same space as the entire state of Schleswig-Holstein, and even in the City of Los Angeles itself you can easily spend 1 or 2 hours by car to get from point A to point B (and that's not even taking into account rush hour traffic jams, which will routinely extend a 10-minute drive at normal hours to a 1-hour slog; 10- and 12-lane freeways and 6- or 8-lane boulevards / avenues not withstanding). Add to that that the places you'd most likely want to see as a tourist are at a considerable distance from each other even by car -- and I don't mean London or Paris or, FWIW, New York City style distance but something else entirely; besides, forget public transport -- and the upshot of it all is that you'll spend most of your day in your car, trying to get somewhere instead of actually visiting; at least if you're trying to cram too many things into one day (or a 2- or 3-day visit tops). Then again, Los Angeles -- and Southern California generally -- is not actually so much about tourist sights to begin with. You have to spend some time there and just soak in the atmosphere ... if you don't allow space for that, you won't ever get to know it at all. And you can't achieve that if all you do is spend your time trying to run (or more likely, crawl) from one tourist sight to the next. So I hope you'll continue to enjoy your armchair visits ... they're as good a visit as anyone can pay the city, without even having to expend the air fare and travel time!