7.8 /10 1 Votes
3.8/5 Barnes & Noble Language English language Publication date January 21, 1992 Followed by The Black Ice | 4.1/5 Goodreads Country United States Series Harry Bosch Originally published 21 January 1992 Genre Crime Fiction Nominations Dilys Award | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Publisher Little, Brown and Company Media type Print (Hardcover, Paperback) Awards Edgar Award for Best First Novel by an American Author Similar Works by Michael Connelly, Harry Bosch mystery books, Novels | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Black Echo is the 1992 début novel by American crime author Michael Connelly. This is the first of Connelly's Bosch series. The book won the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award in 1992.
Contents
Plot
The novel centers around Harry Bosch, a Vietnam veteran who served as a "tunnel rat" during the war, became an L. A. police detective advancing to the Robbery-Homicide Division. However, after killing the main suspect in the "Dollmaker" serial killings, Bosch is demoted to "Hollywood Division" homicide, where he partners with Jerry Edgar. The death of Billy Meadows, a friend and fellow "tunnel rat" from the war, attracts Bosch's interest, especially when he determines that it may have been connected to a spectacular bank robbery using subterranean tunnels. Bosch suspects that the robbers were after more than money and he then partners with the FBI, in particular agent Eleanor Wish, in an attempt to foil their next attack.
Bosch and Wish end up connecting the robberies to a group of Vietnamese living in Orange County, as well as some Americans that may have been involved with them. In the end, he discovers that a coworker from the FBI is the killer and Eleanor Wish knew all about it the whole time.
Awards
The Black Echo won the 1993 Edgar Award for "Best First Novel" and was also nominated for the Anthony Award in the same category and the Dilys Award for "Best Novel".