Just started reading “The Black Box” and do not know what the title references yet. But this Bosch novel was published in 2012 which was twenty years after the L.A. Riots (of 1992). *Funny that I recall so little about the riots, although I think there were riots elsewhere, especially in Miami where my cousin, Yvonne, suggested I not come down for a visit because there were unsafe areas. I think she mentioned that if you go to the right, you’ll be okay, but if you go to the left you could be in serious trouble.
But, just a few years ago, after George Floyd, the Fayetteville Police did little to nothing regarding the looting in the Fayetteville Mall (J.C. Penny’s entrance had to be boarded up afterwards.) or I think there was video evidence of looters (white & black) in Walmart.
Brian Mims with WRAL, reporting on Fayetteville Walmart looting.
So Harry says something to Chu to the effect, “If you need to be thanked all the time for just doing your job, then maybe you got into the wrong profession.” And Chu doesn’t respond. Now I think the immediate response by Chu could have been to tell Harry, “Well Harry, you condescending piece of shit. I should know not to come to you for support or encouragement.” But rather than an immediate response, if I had a “partner” that had that “lone wolf” attitude, and repeatedly directed condescending barbs toward me… first I would be looking to get as far away from being “his partner” as I could, and I would also know that at some point in the future, Harry Bosch would go fishing for an “undeserved” compliment and I would feed his exact words back to him, with a wry smile, “Well Harry, if you always need to be thanked for just doing your job, then maybe you got into the wrong profession… and if I haven’t told you, I’m transferring next week to a different division. See ya, Bosch.”
Art Pepper “Patricia” (YouTube) So I just listened to the entire song on YouTube, and see that most of the comments for this are regarding Bosch & Connelly… just years before my introduction. *If you enjoyed “Morse” and his finer things, wine & opera, then you could probably see the similarities between the two fictional detectives. I tried listening to opera, but just could never get into it. And, I went through my jazz phase years ago, probably the 1970s & 80s, part of the time when I was living & going to school in Louisville, KY. John Klemmer’s sax was a fav then. John Klemmer “Touch” 1970s (maybe early 80s). For me it was 1982-4, mom had died in December of 1980. Loved Al Jarreau back then also. *Art Pepper on Art Pepper from this he says he grew up in San Pedro (pee-droh) , so Harry Bosch & Terry McCaleb at Cabrillo Marina, Vincent Thomas Bridge & Avalon, Catalina Island all in the mix.
Just read the part where Harry becomes aware that he may have been unintentionally disrespecting his partner by just calling him Chu. Harry has been so much more disrespectful to his partner than just this. In fact I am surprised that Harry didn’t just shrug it off and keep calling him Chu. But, recall that Chu had given case info to one of his newspaper journalist friends and Harry wanted “him gone.” Wasn’t right for Chu to do it, but understandable since Harry had repeatedly cut Chu out of the loop, keeping him like a mushroom in the basement, in the dark and shoveling shit on top. **Chu should have called Harry a “whore spawn” and wiped the dust off his (Chu’s) feet as he walked out the door.
I found “The DROP” at B.J.’s Bookstore in Fayetteville, NC last week. Unfortunately, it was a paperback edition, on medium greyish paper, and although I am about 70 pages into it, the smaller print & darker background makes the reading less pleasant. *I’ve been looking, this morning, to see if I can find an online copy that won’t cost an “arm and a leg” to read, but if not will muddle through the paperback. (Also bought hardback copies of “The Burning Room” and “The Black Box.”) All three were $3 each, and I had a good long talk with the male owner of the book store (I guess he owns it, and the woman, might be his wife.) “The Burning Room” is another Bosch story that I have already seen on TV, and like “The Wrong Side of Goodbye,” I don’t feel like reading this since the TV version is still strong in my mind, and also from a Bosch period that I don’t much want to revisit.
Having said that, I am now reading “The DROP,” and Harry’s partner is Chu.
Harry is called in at the special request of Councilman Irvin Irving, because Irving’s 40 something years old son has dropped from the 7th floor of the Chateau Marmont hotel. George Irving has made a big splash, but Harry isn’t sure if Irving has committed suicide, or if he had assistance by someone else in making his final leap. And there is a play on the word “drop.” Harry is going to be forced to retire, according to the DROP and George Irving lying dead at the northwest corner of the Marmont, has made the drop. Truly nothing yet has been revealed to make anyone think that George has done anything other than commit suicide, for what reason or reasons we do not know, but the bed in his room is untouched, his clothing neatly hung on hangers in the closet, a black button off his white dress shirt on the floor, a white robe on the back of his balcony chair, and a digital clock lying on the floor. Harry doesn’t think “accident” even though the balcony has a low lying railing.
The Chateau Marmont may have been mentioned in some other Bosch novel, or TV episode, because maybe a couple of years ago, I went online and viewed the area where this hotel is located. And, from another Bosch story, I recognized the commercial complex in which “The Crush,” an exercise business is located a short distance down Sunset Blvd.
Chateau Marmont
There are great pictures of the Chateau Marmont online and especially of the side of the hotel in which this story has started. Oh, John Belushi died in this hotel, and Led Zepplin were raucous in one of the bungalows.
LAPD Police Academy Elysian Park
LAPD Headquarters – Downtown LA
The Bradbury Building on 3rd St.
Charlie Chaplin Statue in Bradbury Building, Los Angeles, CA
Charlie Chaplin, “the Tramp” StatueRobert Culp, Outer Limits “Demon with a Glass Hand”
Harry and Kiz have a clandestine meeting at the Charlie Chaplin Statue in the Bradbury Building. *”The Night Strangler” film, from 1973, a precursor to the series, “Kolchak: The Night Stalker” (only 1 season) was filmed partially in the Bradbury Building, although the character’s situ was supposed to be Chicago.
The LA Times Building. Across the street, to the left, is LAPD Headquarters. Behind this view is The City Hall.
Chinatown Entrance on Broadway
Harry has just found out that his partner, Chu, may have shared private case info with “GoGo,” an LA Times reporter. Not something a detective should be doing for any reason. But, I can see where “lone wolf” Harry Bosch doesn’t inspire loyalty with his partner, especially this partner. Harry has treated Chu like a mushroom… keeping him in the dark and shoveling shit on top. *But, should Harry have shared private case info, regarding autopsy results, with a reporter friend of his, in “The Black Ice?”
I enjoyed watching the “Morse” episodes, and there are parallels between Endeavor Morse and Hieronymus Bosch. Morse kept his partners, like Lewis, “in the dark” but I guess that goes with being the more intuitive & experienced partner in a relationship. Neither Morse nor Bosch have any real success with women. I look forward to reading the early Bosch novels to see where Bosch marries Eleanor Wish (post FBI and prison for her). I know the marriage doesn’t take place in the first two novels because I’ve read those. I know Eleanor dies in “The Nine Dragons.” And I don’t recall the novel where Harry actually figures out that he has a four year old daughter, Mads, that Eleanor hasn’t even told him about. Not a great relationship or commitment by either Harry or Eleanor. Definitely not something to be copied to have success in a “good” marriage.
Maybe Morse and Bosch are “idiot savants” regarding their insights into solving cases. But, they are idiots at relationships, especially with women. And being that way, no wonder they spend inordinate amounts of time on cases, and not developing outside, intimate relationships.
The Standard on W. Sunset Blvd.
I guess the Standard is no more, because the signage is turned upside down (see below).
The setup and attack by Pell on Hardy in the Sheriff’s transport is reminiscent of someone else who manipulated their arrest and then stabbed (???) someone to death in a holding cell, although I don’t recall which other novel in which that scenario was included. Also, it was a little bit of a stretch to think that Pell would have been strategically placed directly behind Hardy on the transport.
[NOTE 04/08/24]: I was watching an episode of “the Rookie” yesterday and there was a prisoner bus accident where the bus went over an embankment. I immediately recognized the location as being very near the LAPD Police Academy at Elysian Park. They also have a drone fly-over at Echo Park that is iconic.
I am pleased regarding my geographic education of Los Angeles which has resulted from my reading of the Bosch novels, and my follow-up online of the area of Google Maps and Street View. As much of the layout that I now know, I still don’t think I would want to live in L.A… or New York, Chicago or even Atlanta… Dallas or D.C. [end NOTE]
I’m about a hundred pages into the “Desert Star” novel and Renee Ballard is limping along as the head of a volunteer “cold case” unit. One person, whom she did not choose, is channeling info back to a wealthy, powerful councilman, so Renee has already intentionally “cut him out of the loop” for an update meeting. She has to keep the councilman happy because he is a possible major source of funding for this volunteer unit.
Harry has already ignored Renee’s “do not copy” policy and she has had to wink at that. But, Harry is uncontrollable, and even though Renee wants all of her staff to focus on one case, Harry just refuses and keeps spending his time & energy on another case. After all, how can you ignore the death of a family of four? Well, it’s not like the family just got killed. And, if it was THAT important, maybe Harry shouldn’t have retired and left that case to someone else several years before. He could have solved that case years ago and be focused on this other case now.
And Renee has hired a “psychic” for her other abilities in researching, but now the psychic has tainted evidence because she had to “touch” items in the evidence box without gloves.
So with all these dysfunctional people on this volunteer unit, Renee can’t last long. In fact, if you can’t control the people either you shouldn’t be their boss, or they shouldn’t be on the “team”.
Renee: “Oh Harry, I didn’t think you would have a problem with the “psychic” trying to get a feel for the case by touching the evidence in your boxes.” “Yes, I know you said something about tainting evidence that might affect your case later, but we’re all just here to work together, aren’t we?”
So, the way it has been written thus far, I don’t see this unit lasting past the end of “Desert Star.”
So now Harry is planning on flying to Chicago, for a day, to pick up a campaign badge for evidence in a case. He agrees to do the trip, “on his dime” but if the department comes through later, he’ll get reimbursed. The mother doesn’t remember touching the button and Harry is trying to preserve any fingerprints or DNA that might be on the badge. I guess the parents didn’t touch the button when they packed up their dead daughter’s things in L.A., to send them back to Chicago. And, that would be possible if they just took the drawer that the campaign button was in and dumped the whole thing in a box. Don’t waste the tax payer’s money on a “hail Mary” ornament. Everyone doesn’t attain the excellence of maintaining the viability of evidence that the Great Harry Bosch does, but surely there must be some adult in Chicago that can package the campaign button up, without touching it, and mail it to L.A. Expedite the transfer, and even if you pay extra for shipping, it’s got to be less than a round trip ticket between L.A. and Chicago. What a waste, for a baby that can’t wait.
[NOTE]: What will be the end of Harry Bosch? Well, “Morse” ends his days as an impotent, sickly human being, and the roles between Morse and Robbie Lewis have switched. Morse is no longer the aficionado of wine & opera, but is stumped when trying to identify a common bird. So Morse dies at the hospital, alone, while Lewis is out solving a case. Just realized that Morse has opera and Bosch has jazz.
I’ve said elsewhere that Harry Bosch has done for L.A. what Morse did for Oxford, England. I noticed early that the street signs in Bosch were always in focus. If you stopped the video and read the street sign, you could go to Google Maps and Street View and find the exact location. Later, much later, once I started reading the Bosch novels I realized that Connelly put his fictional characters in “real” locations. This was fun to get a better feel for what Connelly was describing. *One problem is that the Bosch novels span a 30 year period, and if you are reading the early books, those actual locations may no longer exist to be viewed online. [end NOTE]
Today the rental agents were supposed to come around to the Longhill Pointe Apartments with a “mortgage” inspection. I decided to leave my apartment for the day, read more of “The Black Ice” at the Main Cumberland County Library in the morning, then go across town for lunch at Pharaoh’s Legacy for a Lamb Gyro Pita and Greek Salad, come back across town to the parking lot, for my cardiologist appointment, and then read some more until my 2:15 pm appointment.
I had been up early most of the morning before having breakfast at home, showering, dressing and leaving for the day, so when I went to the library and started reading, I was sleepy.
I was at the restaurant a little before noon and ordered soon after entering and being seated at a table directly in front of the entrance door. Unfortunately, the Greek Salad wasn’t as good as it normally is. The red onion was thin, the Pepperoncini skin was tough and there wasn’t much Italian dressing. Several previous visits to the restaurant, had delicious salads and the Kalamata olives especially had good flavor. *I even learned how to make the Italian dressing at home satisfactorily. There are things I don’t like in my Greek Salad… cucumber and sweet bell pepper. The basic dressing is easy to make at home: red wine vinegar, olive oil, Italian herbs, S&P, Dijon mustard and some sweetener. I’ve started using Romaine Lettuce (I buy the whole head because it lasts much longer than prepared, chopped Hearts of Romaine, which turns brown quickly.). I have several jars of Pepperoncini, and just bought more Kalamata olives from the Olive Bar at Fresh Market in Fayetteville.
I ate most of the salad, except for some of the tough Pepperoncini, and a bit of Romaine. I ate just a little of the pita bread, and then got a box for the remaining Lamb Gyro in the pita. I was in the doctor’s office parking lot about an hour and a half early, but eventually backed into a spot and started to read my book again. I went in to the office a little after 2pm, and at around 2:15 a nurse came out and directed me back, for a weigh-in, and some other tests. She commented on my loss of weight, as did the doctor later. He set up an appointment for another year from now. *I’m feeling good, but know that at my age, 70, a serious illness (even terminal) might jump out at me, unannounced. And, although I currently am healthy and able to easily take care of myself, cooking, bathing, grocery shopping, etc., if I lose my mobility that would seriously affect my lifestyle.
I don’t really want to move back to Jacksonville, Hubert or Swansboro, NC even though Mary Ann and her family are in Hubert. I am alone in Fayetteville, but I would be pretty much alone wherever I went now.
[NOTE 01/09/25]: When I remember, I take a sandwich baggy with me, to the restaurant, that has some pepperoncini, grape tomatoes & sliced sweet onion, and I now ask my waiter/ess for an extra cup of their Italian dressing. Usually, the restaurant’s pepperoncini has a tougher skin but their Kalamata olives, which I normally can’t find in my refrigerator, have a better taste.
I’m currently reading “Magic Foods For Better Blood Sugar.” Three of the ingredients they suggest for lowering blood sugar include: red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, and olive oil. These are all included in the Italian dressing.
I haven’t been making many salads for my meals, and most of those are not Greek salads, but I do have some Romaine lettuce in the fridge.
Fortunately, it only takes about 30 pages of the novel, “The Black Ice” to understand what the phrase “Black Ice” references. There is a Hawaiian version of a drug mix called “glass” but Mexicans are able to reproduce it more cheaply, and deliver it more cheaply, and money talks, so the Hawaiians are selling less and less. The drawback is that the Mexicans are using a brown heroin in the mix and this lends it’s name to their “Black Ice.”
But, we start with a dead LA detective, Plaxico Burrus… no, Calixeco Moore who apparently has committed suicide with a double barrel shotgun, in a cheap motel room, and a good portion of his head has been disintegrated.
Harry and Moore had met once, outside of work, at a bar, the “Catalina Bar & Grill.” Harry gets an education on “glass” versus “black ice.” But Harry also sees that Moore is just a committed drunk. And now, several weeks later, just before Christmas, Moore’s body has been found. *So I thought this bar would be easy to find in Google Maps, but then you realize that “The Black Ice” was written about 1993, so that was about 31 years ago. There are quite a few restaurants & bars that don’t last anywhere near as long.
Harry’s nemesis, Irvin S. Irving, sends him to notify Moore’s widow of her husband’s death. Harry knows that the widow is a teacher and that at the time of Moore’s death, he was separated from his wife. In fact, this might have been a reason, or one of the reason’s for Moore to commit suicide. But, Harry can’t remember the widow’s name, which she later tells him, it’s “Sylvia.” Harry is attracted to her.
Sylvia tells Bosch that she teaches English, and that she assigns different books to her students that have something to do with the history of Los Angeles. There is a quote from one specific book, “The Long Goodbye,” that she likes, “There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself.” She says it’s about a detective, and Harry says he’s read the book. *When does Harry read a book?
“The Long Goodbye” was written by Raymond Chandler in 1953, and it was released as a movie in 1973, featuring Elliot Gould as Detective Philip Marlowe. I know the movie, having just rewatched it in the last week. In the movie, Marlowe is living at the High Tower Apartments, the apartments with the iconic elevator in a tower (located very close to the Hollywood Bowl). Because I haven’t read the Bosch novels in the order in which they were written by Connelly, I read “Echo Park” early. Recall that in “Echo Park” a young woman had been killed 13 years before, and only her automobile had been found in one of the small garages at the High Tower Apartments. When I saw the name “High Tower Apartments,” I immediately thought of the Long Goodbye movie, although at the time it had been several years since I last watched this film. The film is iconic, for the elevator in the tower, and Marlowe’s finicky cat that only will eat a certain brand of cat food, Marlowe’s scantily clad, and sometimes even nude female neighbors, and even for the movie’s ending when Marlowe shoots and kills his friend, who had killed his wife (not Marlowe’s wife) and set Marlowe up for a roller coaster ride with the cops & gangsters. *And one of the gangsters included a young Arnold Schwarzenegger. ***Written in 1953, released as a movie in 1973 and referenced in a Connelly novel in 1993. Before I forget, I’m also a Sterling Hayden fan, who’s character commits suicide by swimming out into the Pacific Ocean. Henry Gibson is also in the film.
So I went to Target today to see if they had celery seeds. I hadn’t found any at Walmart, and had mentally gone through the various other grocers that might have celery seeds in their spices section.
I rarely go to Target, but have bought various items there in the past. I walked off to the side in the store to their grocery section, and then looked back to one of the shelves. I saw what appeared to be about four hardback books laying on top of each other. They weren’t displayed for selling the books, but just as a display of “some books on a shelf.” For some reason, I decided to walk over to see which books they were, and even thought that they were about the size of a Connelly novel. And what? Yes, there was “Resurrection Walk” with a discount of 30% off the listed price. That would be about $21 dollars, plus tax.
And, as I’m writing this, the first episode of “The Rookie” is coming on again and I see that it is set in LA also.
I forgot. There is a dead Hawaiian “mule” who had a stomach full of drug sausages, but he had been strangled, and this is Harry’s case.
So, I am trying to think of how this story will all come together. Who killed the Hawaiian? Was Moore killed, or did he commit suicide? Will Harry screw Moore’s widow? Will Harry close two cases, before January 1st so that the department can say they have solved more homicides that year, than failed to?
Yes, he does screw Sylvia Moore before he heads to Mexicali. *Now, my next question is, “Does Sylvia Moore get killed by the end of ‘The Black Ice’?” And, I am still wondering if Harry actually marries Eleanor Wish.
Hotel De Anza, Calexico, CA
Sunshine Canyon Landfill
Monumento a Benito JuárezMexicali, Mexico
[ADDENDUM 03/15/24]: So I’ve finished “The Black Ice” and have now started reading “City of Bones.” It’s been about eight years, between the two stories and Bosch needs Teresa C, the Chief Medical Examiner of LA, to identify a bone as ‘human.’ He stops by her front door, at night, and she quickly authenticates it as a humerus bone, probably of a child of about 10 years old, and then dismisses Harry quickly as she is on her way to some event. It’s New Year’s Eve.
Now here’s the thing. You just have to go back and review the last time Teresa and Harry were together, intimately. Seems that Teresa had completed the autopsy on Calexico Moore and she had found evidence that he hadn’t committed suicide, but Harry doesn’t know this, but Harry is questioning her as to what evidence she has discovered. She reluctantly tells Harry, “you can’t tell anyone this because it will jeopardize my chances at work of becoming the Chief Medical Examiner and not just the “Acting Chief…” Harry agrees willingly to “keep mum” about whatever it is, and Teresa spills the beans, and then they make love. Afterwards, while Teresa is taking a shower, Harry calls a reporter friend at the newspaper and suggests that there is a conflict with Moore’s cause of death. A suicide or a homicide? And then Harry heads down to Mexico.
When I read this, I remember thinking, “If I were a male contemporary of Harry Bosch, and he treated me the way he had just treated Teresa, I would probably think Harry was a sorry piece of shit that couldn’t be trusted. The information she had given him, in confidence, and that he had agreed not to share, because it might cost her the job she wanted, he had shared, immediately with the newspaper, and it would be obvious where the “leak” had come from. If I were a male co-worker with Harry, I would write him off right then as being a lying son of a bitch that couldn’t be trusted, and there wouldn’t be anything he could do or say that would ever change that. *Even if he makes it in the end so that I get approval from Irvin S. Irving to become permanent Chief Medical Examiner, which Harry did. Harry would have betrayed the trust between us, and become just another self-serving dick. Make her out to be some self-serving bitch, but Harry was worse, a lying asshole that couldn’t be trusted. His word, was about as long as his dick.
This was the first Harry Bosch novel published in 1992.
Harry is reacquainted with a “tunnel rat” that he originally met while both were serving in Vietnam. Although this time, Meadows is dead and stuffed in a drain pipe next to the Mulholland Reservoir Dam. Harry first meets FBI Agent Eleanor D. Wish ( not her maiden name ) on this case. Irvin S. Irving is Bosch’s nemesis “from the get go.” *Recall that Irving in the books is white, but on the TV series he is black and played by Lance Reddick. Both the white & black Irving’s are bald, probably like Mr. Clean.
It appears that Meadows was part of a bank heist, and one of the tunnellers that stole a bunch of stuff. About a hundred pages into the novel the questions are why did the bank robbers choose the vault with “stuff” and not the easier to steal, vault with “cold hard cash?” But, I am hoping that Meadows comes out squeaky clean by the end, not a part of the heist, but merely killed because he came to know too much.
East/Overflow Parking Lot – Pedestrian Tunnel for Hollywood Bowl
Pedestrian Tunnel Bowl Side
By page 200 we’re guessing who has murdered Sharkey and left him dead in a tunnel at the Hollywood Bowl. At first, we are thinking that one of his previous scam victims has laid a trap for Sharkey, but that he calls him “Sharkey” by name seems more sinister, and we are left to believe that someone involved with the bank heist has sensed Sharkey as a threat and killed him.
*In “Echo Park” the High Tower Apartments, which are on the other side of the hill from the Hollywood Bowl, are of prominent interest. They were where a murdered young woman’s car had been left in one of the small garages. **But, when I saw the elevator tower in Google Street View, I immediately recalled seeing this in an old Philip Marlowe (LA detective) movie from the early 1970’s. Elliot Gould plays Marlowe, lives in an apartment next to the top of the elevator tower, has scantily clad and sometimes naked young women as neighbors, and has a cat that is finnicky about the cat food he will eat. And, I just rewatched “The Long Goodbye” in the last couple of days paying particular attention to the apartment interior, and the view (of the garages below) from his apartment. Seems like the balcony where the scantily clad neighbors lived has changed somehow from the current Street View. **Oh, and a young, pumped, thug, Arnold Schwarzennegar, takes his shirt & pants off in a scene, displaying his yellow underwear.
All of the above got me looking more closely at the Hollywood Bowl and the immediate area and at some point I was attracted to this pedestrian tunnel that allows people to park in what appears to be an “overflow” parking lot for the Bowl. I take it that this is the tunnel in which Sharkey was found, or for me it is more interesting to believe this to be so.
Maddie Bosch talking on phone, walking down Hollywood Blvd.
Bosch: Legacy, Season 1, Ep. 6
Hollywood Cactus Taqueria #1 – Bosch & Potter talking at night.
Citibank on W. Sunset Blvd.
In this episode, a young “boot” LAPD officer gets shot and Maddie is assigned to act as liaison to her family. Maddie is talking to Harry later and he tells her about being shot, when he was pursuing a couple of bank robbers in a downtown tunnel. *We see a large poster of “The Black Echo” briefly as the camera pans past Harry sitting in a chair. Harry begins telling his story of the events, and how in the darkness, he trips over one of the robbers, who now is dead from an earlier gun shot wound. But his partner is waiting around the corner and shoots Harry and Harry falls. Harry then hears the bad guy coming back to finish him off, but Eleanor Wish (an FBI agent, to be Harry’s wife, and Maddie’s mother) shoots the bad guy before he can shoot Harry again, and saves Harry’s life. Maddie does this also, later, at a marina where another bad guy has got the drop on Harry on a boat. *I’m currently reading “The Black Echo” (the first Bosch novel, and set back in the early 90’s) so now I have some idea where this is all going. That is if there aren’t differences between the book & the Legacy TV show. But, I haven’t read why the Army “tunnel rat” has been killed, but I am guessing it is to keep him quiet about an upcoming bank heist.
**When you realize that “The Black Echo” was written & set in 1992, then you have to go back to how things were then. I was a year or so into my “Microcomputer Systems Technology” training at Coastal Carolina Community College in Jacksonville, NC. PC monitors were multi-colored by this time, but there was no wide-spread Internet. In fact, in August of 1995 when I was hired at Fayetteville State University, the Netscape browser was not even a year old, yet. At the time, I didn’t know that Netscape was still in it’s infancy.
Maybe this is why I either misplaced “The Overlook” or never actually bought it at the book sale in “Little Washington.” I would not have gone looking for a signed copy of this book online. But, I have just ordered it for about $42 (including tax & shipping). Why? If it arrives with a valid Connelly signature as shown below, it would be well worth it for me, “Bill,” even though the “Bill” mentioned in the signature, wasn’t me… but maybe it was meant to be. ‘All the best from Harry Bosch, Good luck in court’;-)
from JOHN CARTERThe Overlookfrom BOSCHIf only, would this not be my perfect signed copy?
Apparently this is the novel in which the FBI agent, is having an affair and kills the husband, who has stolen radioactive Cesium, and somewhere during this case Harry is exposed to the radioactivity… later giving him a mild form of Leukemia (With mom dying of Leukemia, I find it difficult to imagine a “mild form.”).
On the TV Bosch, Lynn Collins plays the unfaithful wife, who’s husband has been murdered, by her lover, an FBI agent. The actress played Dejah Thorin in “John Carter.” I liked the “John Carter” movie, but later, much later, was reading online that this movie was a “stinker,” and had lost a bunch of money for Disney. In that movie, Lynn Collins looked like a goddess, while she was more haggard looking in the Bosch episode.
[NOTE]: I just recalled that I did a Google Maps Street View on some of the locations from the Bosch TV series that included this story (The Overlook). They had an outside scene for St. Agatha’s Hospital, which I eventually found was another “out of business” hospital that they had put a sign on. There had been an actual “St. Agatha’s Hospital” but that location had been razed to the ground, pending new development. [end NOTE]
I suppose this is the Overlook.
And this was the victim’s home (which is actually very close to the Overlook location.
St. Vincent’s Medical Center used as St. Agatha’s Hospital
Well, Friday started off with a visit to the cardiologist’s office to have an echocardiogram. I had forgotten that I had this scheduled at 9:30 am on Friday. I originally was planning to get up a little earlier and make it to Greenville, NC by 9:00 am to be one of the first in the Library Book Sale at the Greenville Convention Center. But, no, I knew the doctor’s appointment was more important, and I hadn’t remembered that visit until the 24 hours advanced notice time was past. But, the echocardiogram went quickly and I was on the road to Greenville before 10 am.
I had decided to take Hwy. 13 all the way to Greenville instead of going up I95 and then taking I264 from Wilson to Greenville. The Wilson to Greenville route was a few minutes quicker, but I have driven that route many times through the years, and wanted a more “scenic” trip.
You turn onto Hwy. 13 at Berkley Blvd. to head to Greenville. The Berkley Mall is within sight of this traffic light. I had driven this route at least once before, because I remembered Snow Hill and had taken a picture of a string of old buildings in downtown Snow Hill on a previous “pass through.” Hwy. 258 intersects Hwy. 13 at Snow Hill. I know Hwy. 258 from my old stomping grounds in Jacksonville & Onslow County years ago. I also recall my NC Driver’s License number because part of it has the number 258 in it. I was 24 in ’88 and there is a Hwy. 258.
Even though I had gotten a late start on my trip because of the echocardiogram, I knew I needed to stop and take a “walk around” break from driving. When I was younger it was nothing for me to drive for four hours straight, and stop only to refuel my vehicle. I might not even have to take a “pee” break back then. Now it is the opposite, I usually have to plan for a pee break, whether I need to or not, because I at least feel like I need to. *But, this was the first time that I came up with the idea to go into a grocery story and walk around there. I saw a Piggly Wiggly and drove into the parking lot, got out and went into the store.
I walked through the store, first looking at a spice section, and eventually around to their meat section. The meat section had good looking cuts of meat, and I noted that some of the pork chops appeared to have a good price, per pound. Didn’t really plan to come back to this store on my way back to Fayetteville, but that is what I did do, and I bought a package of pork chops for $1.59 / pound. **I may have even bought the same package of pork chops that I had taken a picture of on my first visit of the day that morning.
The book sale was a little disappointing. I did end up buying two Michael Connelly novels that I didn’t already have, “City of Bones” and “The Lincoln Lawyer.” “City of Bones” is an earlier Bosch novel. Although I like the “Lincoln Lawyer” TV series, I wasn’t enamored with the Haller story I started to read, so I put it down. A note on the book cover for “City of Bones,” is that I have seen that cover before. Probably at one of the book sale visits somewhere. Part of the cover has a raised letter grid that was memorable. Don’t know why I didn’t buy this novel when I saw it at the earlier sale. Also don’t know what happened to “The Overlook” novel that I recorded as having bought in Little Washington, but couldn’t find when I got home, still… to this day.
I bought the two Connelly novels and about 4 other, German Language, books. One of those language books was a novel with a title, in German, meaning something like “The Snowmaiden’s Secret.” Another larger book has a title meaning something like, “First Men” or “People.” And, the check-out woman said my total was $6, so I gave her a $20 and told her to “keep the change as a donation.” She asked me if I was sure, and I said, “Yes.” After all, a donation to most libraries is “a good cause,” and where else can you buy a book for a dollar, or three, or even @$10 for a book that probably originally cost $35?
So, I’ve read eleven of the Bosch novels so far and am currently reading the first, “The Black Echo.” Definitely hadn’t planned on reading any of them, but have enjoyed most of them, and really like the characters and story line differences from the TV series. ****e.g. Irvin S. Irving is white in the novels and black ( played by Lance Reddick ) on TV. It is necessary for him to be white and prejudiced in the book, “The Closers,” for the comment, “Irving is a Jewish name, isn’t it,” to make any sense. I never really noticed the animosity between Irving & Bosch in the TV series, although I do recall an office scene between the two where Bosch has realized that Irving “planted evidence,” shows him the archived photo that proves it, and Irving shreds the evidence in front of him. It is a shame that Lance Reddick died. I liked him in whatever I saw him in, especially “Fringe.”
All through my adult “working” life, I never read much for entertainment. I read a great deal for work, and enjoyed much of that, but I wasn’t interested in “wasting my time” reading fiction, sci-fi or detective novels. I wasn’t interested in historical fiction. If it’s history, I want it to be historically accurate. But, from my historical research on the Cape Fear River steamboats, I do realize that sometimes the researcher/writer has to draw items together, when there is no written evidence as proof. You have to do this just to make the story “come together.”
When I got home, I took one of the pork chops out of the package. They looked good, and they were cut a little thicker, but not actually a thick cut chop. I decided to dice up some onion, jalapeno, poblano, red bell pepper & a couple of small tomatoes and fry the pork chop up on the stove-top. I also added some cayenne pepper and a chipotle pepper and some of the adobo sauce, with sweetener & a little agave nectar. I didn’t fix anything else with the pork chop. No rice, or sweet potato, or even tortilla chips. No slaw or cucumber & onion salad. Any of these extras would have been good with this spicy hot pork chop. It did turn out very well. ***Part of no sides with this meal was because I had eaten a bunch at lunch time. I had a Shrimp Po’Boy sandwich with coleslaw and a side of fried okra. The sandwich and the okra were “good again,” and this time I noted that they had put extra fried shrimp on my plate around the sandwich, and there was a very generous portion of okra. There were so many okra, that I asked for a “to go” box, and a “to go” cup of water with ice. In retrospect, I may have gotten a few extra shrimp and a bunch more fried okra because it was “late” lunch-time and maybe the chef was trying to get rid of these items so as not to have any left (or perhaps not enough for one more plate).
Looking out the back door of Down on Main Street.
I was seated at a slightly different angle my last visit to Down on Main Street, and I think the black throw rug was in a slightly different position, but here was the kitchen door where the waitress came out of and did her dance with the woman customer coming out of the nearby Women’s Bathroom, and spilling some items. But note the man sweeping. Several of the men were in what I would call “a cleaning mode” which is definitely something I don’t have. I’m nasty, but it doesn’t mean I don’t recognize “clean” people, and even appreciate them.
As I am getting ready to pay my bill, and I had already taken my VISA card out (as I normally do), I looked at the ticket and noted that there was an extra charge (less than a dollar) if you didn’t pay by cash. I realized what this meant, but I did verify the meaning with my waitress a short time later. Yes, an extra charge if you paid with a credit card. So I fished around for enough cash and only included a $2 tip. The meal and unsweet tea were about $16. $1.60 would have been a 10% tip, so is that a 12.5 % tip? I think so. This waitress got the job done, but I didn’t really feel that she had “invested” enough in our brief relationship for me to be generous and give her a $3 tip. $2 felt cheap, but cheap I am, and I wasn’t going to pay a credit surcharge if I had enough cash.
C. Erwin Piper Technical Center – Evidence Storage Warehouse
Chinatown
[NOTE 02/26/24]: Okay, let me come up with a scenario for “The Closers.” I’m about a 140 pages into this novel, and… the murdered girl, had an abortion a few months before she was killed. She was shot with a stolen gun (so he says) and another man’s DNA was found in the gun (now 17 years after the murder). Apparently this weapon was known to “pinch” the handler, if they weren’t cautious, and some skin, attributed to someone, not the gun’s owner, was found in the gun, from such a “pinch.”
The girl was part of a small group of girls that had known each other since 1st Grade. But, none of the girls seemed to know that the murdered girl had been pregnant. They knew of no boyfriend, other than one that had moved from the area about a year previous to the murder, and who had an alibi, a long way off… which Harry found hard to believe. But, you’ve also got to ask, why would this former boyfriend have a reason to kill this girl.
After the murder, the father left the home and became a “street” person. The mother stayed in the home, made a shrine to her daughter, in her daughter’s bedroom, and made ends meet by collecting items and then selling them online.
I’m going to guess that incest is going to be the reason for the murder. The girl’s father. Her father ran a restaurant, where she also worked. I’m guessing that the father may have procured the murder weapon from someone who stole the gun and left his DNA in the weapon. Could be the burglar threw the gun away in a dumpster behind the father’s restaurant. [end NOTE]
Bill Gibson, II 