Patterico's Pontifications

6/4/2007

Michael Connelly’s “The Overlook”: Good Stuff

Filed under: Books — Patterico @ 9:22 pm



I finished “The Overlook” by Michael Connelly tonight. I don’t have too much to say about it other than that I recommend it, as I do all Michael Connelly books. If you’re not reading him, you should be.

I first mentioned it here, Sunday night, and my brother already bought it and read it. Who else will join us?

You can get the book here.

There is a “Chapter 23” that I learned about at the book signing Sunday evening. You can read that here — but don’t read it before reading the book first. It contains spoilers.

2 Responses to “Michael Connelly’s “The Overlook”: Good Stuff”

  1. I like Connelly too, and liked this one a lot.

    But, for the budget conscious, this is a very short novel. It’s a reworking of a quickly written serial published in a weekly magazine (The NYT Sunday mag). You might want to wait for the paperback, because you can finish this in one sitting of a few hours, and I personally feel like I didn’t need to pay hardback price for something I got through in pretty much one take on the couch and will probably never feel the need to revisit.

    That said, it was cool to see Connelly race through a quickly paced plot so economically. It was kind of like putting his signature character Harry Bosch in a “24” situation, in that it involved terrorism, twists, and surprises in a story that basically starts and wraps up in a single day. It still has the usual LA local flavor and authentic-seeming LAPD procedure and politics that marks his Bosch books.

    As much as I like his earlier more intricately plotted books, and think his last couple have been more hastily written and coasting a bit, this was a cool and rewarding experiment.

    aplomb (7e0317)

  2. The “24” reference is apt, and indeed, Connelly referred to the show in his talk. He said that the novel takes place in 12 hours, rather than 24, but it’s otherwise similar.

    Patterico (eeb415)


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