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Summary and Reviews of Angels Flight by Michael Connelly

Angels Flight by Michael Connelly

Angels Flight

A Harry Bosch Novel

by Michael Connelly
  • Critics' Consensus (4):
  • First Published:
  • Jan 1, 1999, 393 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jan 2000, 480 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

A lawyer famous for his lawsuits charging the LAPD with racism and brutality is found murdered and Harry Bosch is put in charge of the team investigating.

At the foot of Angels Flight, an inclined railway in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, a lawyer is found murdered on the eve of a landmark trial. Howard Elias's lawsuits charging the LAPD with racism and brutality made him a celebrity-even as his success earned him the hatred of nearly every police officer in the city. When Harry Bosch is put in charge of the team investigating Elias's murder, he knows that his colleagues are likely to be his chief suspects. He also knows that the city's smoldering racial tensions could ignite if he missteps.

As he works night and day in the glare of a major media event, Bosch struggles with a more personally urgent mystery: trying to find out whether his wife's disappearance means she has left him for good or fallen deeper into a dangerous addiction. Bosch's sadness about his failing marriage shadows his work, leaving him doubly exhausted as the investigation is stymied by internal sabotage. As leads emerge-taking Bosch into Elias's private life, into S&M parlors and dark corners of the Internet, and into confrontation with some of L.A.'s most violent cops-the city nears the point of explosion. On streets filled with angry mobs, amid burning buildings and under fire from rooftop snipers, Bosch must find the one answer that will make sense of the case's strangely unconnected pieces-exposing himself to grave danger in the hope of saving his job, his marriage, and his city.

The word sounded alien in his mouth, as if spoken by someone else. There was an urgency in his own voice that Bosch didn't recognize. The simple hello he had whispered into the telephone was full of hope, almost desperation. But the voice that came back to him was not the one he needed to hear.

"Detective Bosch?"

For a moment Bosch felt foolish. He wondered if the caller had recognized the faltering of his voice.

"This is Lieutenant Michael Tulin. Is this Bosch?"

The name meant nothing to Bosch and his momentary concern about how he sounded was ripped away as an awful dread stole quickly into his mind.

"This is Bosch. What is it? What's wrong?"

"Hold please for Deputy Chief Irving."

"What is--"

The caller clicked off and there was only silence. Bosch remembered who Tulin was now--Irving's adjutant. Bosch stood still and waited. He looked around the kitchen, only the dim oven light on. With one hand he ...

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Reviews

Media Reviews

Boston Globe
Connelly raises the hard-boiled detective novel to a new level...adding substance and depth to modern crime fiction.

Los Angeles Times
The top of the class of new mystery writers. . . . Recalls no one so much as Raymond Chandler...ambitious, skillful, moving, intricate, and clever.

New York Daily News
Connelly is so good....How beautifully he strews the faulty suppositions, the flawed conclusions, the false bottoms.

Publishers Weekly
A writer with a superior talent for storytelling.

Reader Reviews

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Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

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    "Begins at a run and in no time is moving at an all-out sprint.... The characters are engaging and the strange goings-on will leave readers rapidly turning pages in search of fresh clues.... [Coben] writes with wit and a shrewd sense of plotting."

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