In 2019, I ended up reading just 15 books, down from 30 books in 2018. This year I’ve decided to set a target to read 20 books. While it might appear to be not as much as many others, I usually read only before bed and when I wake up. Work takes up a good portion of the day.
Sitting here in the first week of March, I’m pleased to say that I am on track to reach or exceed that target. I’ve completed 7 books since the start of the year. And, I’m currently reading my eight. I do have two or more unread books that I need to pick up and complete. The first five books I read were books 2-6 of the Harry Bosch series. I paused that to pick up two others books that I had left in the queue.
Below is the list of all that I’ve read so far. Note that the links contain my affiliate code for Amazon. Instead of clicking you can also google the titles.
The Black Ice
When a body is found in a hotel room, reporters are soon all over the case: it appears to be a missing LAPD narcotics detective, apparently gone to the bad. The rumours were that he had been selling a new drug called Black Ice that had been infiltrating Los Angeles from the Mexican cartel.
The LAPD are quick to declare the death a suicide, but Harry Bosch is not so sure. There are odd mysteries and unexplained details from the crime scene which just don’t add up. Fighting an attraction to the detective’s widow, Bosch starts his own maverick investigation, which soon leads him over the borders and into a dangerous world of shifting identities, police politics and deadly corruption…
The Concrete Blonde
When LAPD detective Harry Bosch shot and killed Norman Church – the ‘Dollmaker’ – the police were convinced it marked the end of the search for one of the city’s most bizarre serial killers.
But four years later, Norman Church’s widow is taking Bosch to court, accusing him of killing the wrong man. To make matters worse, Bosch has just received a note, eerily reminiscent of the ones the Dollmaker used to taunt him with, giving him a location where a body can be found.
Is the Dollmaker still alive? Or is this the work of a vicious copycat killer, determined to repeat the Dollmaker’s grisly feats and destroy Bosch’s career in the process?
The Last Coyote
LAPD detective Harry Bosch is down on his luck – his house is condemned in the aftermath of the earthquake, his girlfriend has left him and he has been suspended for attacking his superior officer.
To occupy time, he examines the old case files covering a murder which took place on October 28, 1961. The victim was Marjorie Phillips Lowe – his mother. The case forces Bosch to confront the demons of the past, and as he digs deeper into the case, he discovers a trail of cover-ups that lead to the high-ups in the Hollywood Hills…
Trunk Music
Harry Bosch is back at the LAPD in Homicide after disciplinary leave. But his first case proves to be one of the most difficult.
In the wooded hills overlooking the Hollywood Bowl, he opens the trunk of a white Rolls-Royce and finds a corpse. It looks like a simple case of Trunk Music – the execution style of the Mafia where the victim is shot in his own vehicle – but the victim is LA movie producer Tony Aliso, and the mob weren’t the only ones after him.
Bosch finds himself up against the FBI – and back in the arms of a beautiful ex-felon. It’s starting to look like Harry’s first case back in Homicide is in danger of being his last…
Angels Flight
Harry Bosch finds himself yet again in charge of a case that no one else will touch. This time his job is to nail the killer of hot shot black lawyer Howard Elias. Elias has been found murdered on the eve of going to court on behalf of Michael Harris, a man the LAPD believes guilty of the rape and murder of a twelve-year-old girl. Elias had let it be known that the aim of his civil case was not only to reveal the real killer but to target and bring down the racist cops who beat up his client during a violent interrogation.
Now it’s all down to Bosch – and he’s got to take a long, hard look at some of his colleagues in a police department that is rife with suspicion and hatred.
Fifteen Times a Killer
When journalist Jess Duffey gets the first chapters of a bad serial-killer novel, she dismisses it as a prank, a ploy for publicity. Until she follows the writer’s directions to the grave and stumbles head-first into an FBI investigation of a grisly cold case. The manuscript is not fiction. It’s true crime.
The anonymous chapters keep coming, leading Jess and the police to more horrifying discoveries of brutal murders committed years earlier. The killer wants Jess to publish his account, word for word, and doing so is the only way Jess and FBI Agent Corrina Stone can find the killer before he completes his evil mission: to kill Fifteen Times.
Not for the faint of heart. Alan McDermott goes into a level of detail which is both fascinating but also quite gruesome. I’ve enjoyed his Grey series and similar to L.J. Ross, I’ve been keeping up with all of his books.
The Quartet Murders
DCI Oldroyd has seen his fair share of victims, but he has never witnessed a murder—until now. When world-famous violinist Hans Muller is shot and killed during a concert, the detective is faced with a case beyond logic. The culprit is nowhere to be found—and the victim’s priceless violin has disappeared too.
As Oldroyd investigates the mystery of the murderer’s identity and the motive for the killing, he enters the ruthless world of wealthy instrument collectors and stumbles upon a dark path where shocking secrets have been buried in the past. But the secrets will soon take centre stage.
Oldroyd must use all his cunning to recover the priceless instrument. But can he also solve the mystery of a murderer who vanished in front of his own eyes?
This is the second book in the Yorkshire Murder Mysteries by J.R. Ellis which I have now picked up. I liked the first book which I read via my Amazon Prime subscription and am currently reading the third. It’s an interesting, well written whodunit.
