Book Review: The Burning Room by Michael Connelly (Harry Bosch #17)

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Bosch and two intriguing mysteries

Cons: Several repetitive plot points

The Bottom Line:

A fresh yet cold case

Bit overly familiar

Still good overall

Bosch Has a New Case He’s Burning to Solve

I didn’t get to as many of Michael Connelly’s books as I had hoped last year.  I’m hoping to fix that in 2024, and I’m off to a good start with The Burning Room, the seventeenth book in his Harry Bosch series.

As this book opens, Harry Bosch is still working in the cold case unit of the LAPD with a year left until his second retirement.  He and his new partner have caught a cold case with a fresh corpse.  The victim, Orlando Merced, was hit with a stray bullet ten years before.  His shooting was never solved, and he has finally died due to complications from his injury.  Bosch is hoping that the bullet, which wasn’t able to be removed before now, will be the break they need to solve the crime.  However, Bosch still finds himself dealing with a lack of clues or evidence.  Will he get lucky and find a new lead?

There is a second case in this book involving a crime from twenty years before that involved his new partner, Detective Lucia Soto.  It’s borderline whether it is a second plot or a subplot, but either way, I enjoyed it.  In fact, I think I liked it a little better than the main storyline.

Here’s my issue with the book – after seventeen books, things are beginning to feel too familiar.  I called several plot twists early just because this was a Bosch book, and certain things are always going to happen.  Not that Bosch is a victim of circumstances.  Quite often, what he is dealing with is at least partially his own fault.

That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy the book or get caught up in the story.  I definitely did, and I was curious to see just how Bosch would solve things.  The ending was a little rushed, but it did answer all of my questions, and Bosch followed a logical trail to get to the endings.

And I do enjoy spending time with the character.  There aren’t too many recurring characters at this point, although we do get some fun appearances by some regular background characters.

One aspect that was fresh was Bosch’s relationship with his new partner.  I really enjoyed watching them work together.  Oh, he still treats her poorly (and hypocritically) at times, but overall, it was a nice change from some of the other partners he’s had over the books.

Again, none of this means I didn’t enjoy the book.  Far from it.  It’s just not one of the stronger books in the series, and fans of the author will see the issues I’m talking about.

As usual, there is some language and violence to be aware of when picking up this book.  But as long as you know it is there, you’ll be fine.  It really is kept to a very small minimum; it’s just that this isn’t one of the cozies I typically read.

This was the first time I got to listen to Titus Welliver narrate one of these books in audio form.  He’s become linked to Bosch thanks to his work on the TV shows revolving around the character.  I was a little surprised that it took me a while to get used to his narration.  I found it a little flat at first, but eventually, I warmed up to it.

While The Burning Room isn’t the strongest book from Michael Connelly, his fans will still enjoy it.  If you aren’t as familiar with the character, you will probably enjoy it more since you won’t see parts of it coming.

Here are the rest of the Harry Bosch novels.