Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly: A review

I read the first Harry Bosch mystery, The Black Echo, five years ago, in August 2013 and I was hooked. I came late to my addiction because that book had been published more than twenty years before in 1992, but I've been chasing Harry ever since, usually reading three or four of the books each year.

And now I've finally caught him! Two Kinds of Truth is the most current entry in the series, so now I'll have to wait around until Michael Connelly produces another one.

Harry is well past his time with the LAPD and well into his 60s. He's working now for the police department in the small city of San Fernando, a suburb of Los Angeles, reviewing cold cases. But, one way or another, he keeps getting pulled back to his days with the LAPD.

This time an old case of his, one that he had cleared thirty years before, is being reviewed. The man he arrested for the rape and murder of a young woman was convicted and sent to death row where he has remained for the last thirty years. But DNA evidence that had not been available thirty years before now seems to indicate the the man convicted was not guilty of the crime. Harry is not buying it. He is convinced that the man was guilty and that the new evidence has somehow been faked and the whole thing is an elaborate scam.

The team that is reviewing the old case includes one of his former partners, Lucia Soto. The team comes to San Fernando to interview Harry and he is immediately defensive and irascible and imputes biased motives to the investigation. In other words, Harry is being Harry.

In the middle of his interview with the review team, he gets called out because the SFPD has caught a double homicide. Since the department has limited staff, they need all hands on deck to help handle the case and that includes Harry. So for the first time in several years, he finds himself working a current case.

At the same time, he is reviewing material from that old case and trying to figure out how the defense team set up the scam that he is certain is being worked.

The current case involves the murder of two pharmacists, a father and son, at a small independent farmacia. Harry immediately develops the theory that the murders are the result of some nefarious activity on the part of the son, but he is wrong! Gasp!

In fact, it turns out that the hit was because of a complaint that the son had filed because his father was providing opioid painkillers based on falsified prescriptions. And the complaint filed with the medical society had landed on the desk of - wait for it - another of Harry's old partners, Jerry Edgar. Jerry is able to assist Harry with some information that helps him when he goes undercover to try to break up the drug ring. A drug ring run by Russians and other Eastern Europeans.

Meantime, Harry hires his half-brother, Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer, to protect his interests in the old case that's being reviewed. With Haller and his investigator Cisco on the case, we can be pretty sure of how this one is going to end.

So we have two story-lines: the old case that's being reviewed and the current double murder case. Both of the stories could easily have been pulled from today's headlines, especially the Russian-run opioid drug ring. Connelly deftly handles the two plots and never lets us get lost in the weeds. After more than 25 years of writing these mysteries, I think he's finally got the hang of it.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

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