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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  obsessedwithbooks | Jan 3, 2010 |  Great read. Bosch is investigating a killing of a Chinese man in a liquor store. the story moves into intrigue with Bosch's daughter in Hong Kong. (  )1  pharrm | Jan 2, 2010 | Michael Connelly’s great hero, Det. Harry Bosch, is transplanted to Hong Kong. Michael Connelly has hit a solid home run again with his recent thriller ‘Nine Dragons’. It’s always tricky to take your mainstay hero, so well received over the last decade, and plonk him/her down in a totally foreign culture, in this case Hong Kong. Stephen Hunter, normally a riveting mystery writer, tried the same trick in 2007’s ‘The 47th Samurai’, with disastrous results. Connelly, however, tiptoes along the razor’s edge of believability and tension, delivering a satisfing plot propelled by the search for a Triad killer amid the seedy crime underbelly of Hong Kong. Along the way there are several good plot twists (including a real zinger at the very end), sound detective work, clues you can understand, plus his trademark fast paced action scenes. Yes, there’s plenty of blood but it’s all plot driven and not gratutious, making this a nice change of scenery for L.A.P.D. police detective Harry Bosch. ( )1 hangen | Jan 2, 2010 | Michael Connelly hits another home run with this book. It is a quick, easy, and fun read. I have read and continue to read everything he writes - never disappointed. ( )1 DBower | Dec 24, 2009 | Michael Connelly reveals another side of his protagonist, Harry Bosch. This time not so nice. We might have expected Harry to have a dark side considering his work as a homicide detective and immersion in all its associated nastiness. But this Harry is not someone we want to get very close with. It all starts slowly enough with Harry waiting for some hapless LA citizen to be murdered so he can go to work. The victim turns out to be a Chinese-American shopkeeper gunned down in his convenience store, sited in a risky neighborhood, who is known by Harry from a case that occurred years earlier. Harry is drawn to conclude a possible triad connection due to evidence of prior collections coinciding with the day and time of the murder. As this unfolds we are also told about Harry's daughter who lives in Hong Kong with his gambler ex wife. This would seem to be incidental until Harry, in hot pursuit of a triad suspect, gets a threatening call to drop the case - or else. Or else turns up quickly in the kidnapping of his daughter in Hong Kong. Needless to say Harry segues into an avenging wildman, cutting a bloody swath through Hong Kong and Kowloon to recover her. Saying more would spoil your read. The story is almost believable and Harry's character comes back to normal as he winds up the original case in LA after returning from dealing with Hong Kong's nine dragons, which is explained well in the book. The descriptions of Hong Kong and Kowloon, including the infamous Chungking Mansions, are well done. All in all, an enjoyable read. 1 rlb727 | Dec 24, 2009 | 
 Whenever authors interrupt a conventional plot to send their series sleuth to some exotic clime, you tend to suspect them of writing off a vacation as a research trip. Michael Connelly doesn’t quite put that suspicion to rest with Nine Dragons, in which he takes a long pause from an investigation into the murder of an old Chinese shopkeeper in Los Angeles and dispatches his detective, Harry Bosch, on a daredevil mission to Hong Kong. But Connelly goes on to resolve both Harry’s home-turf case and that nasty business in Hong Kong in his customary double-barreled style of action and intelligence. So let’s just say that a good writer can get away with just about anything he wants to.  The center of the book is a breathless, bloody quest through a city Bosch barely knows, a teeming metropolis of skyscrapers and high finance in the midst of celebrating the ancient Festival of Hungry Ghosts. It's a foray outside his usual haunts that works, and one that takes him into new emotional territory as well. Harry's personal and professional lives overlap in the engrossing Nine Dragons, the 15th novel — and one of the best — in this series. Nine Dragons works as a gripping police procedural, an intense character study and an international thriller. The novel also explores a man learning to become a father, serves as a travel guide to the back streets of Hong Kong police and provides an in-depth look at Los Angeles' Asian community. To say that "Nine Dragons" is coiled tight with suspense understates Connelly's accomplishment in portraying Bosch at the cusp of a new world... And though Connelly remains a master at detailing the intricacies of "the job," it is Harry's longing for reunion and connection with his ex-wife and daughter, the overwhelming vulnerability he feels as a father, that makes "Nine Dragons" another standout in the series that should satisfy all readers, whether they are new to Boschworld, occasional visitors or devoted denizens.  The appearance of a third Connelly title in a year would be excellent news if Nine Dragons, his latest offering, didn't read like it had been scribbled during a red-eye from Los Angeles to Hong Kong, the two cities where the slapdash action unfolds.
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| Book description |
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(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:51:02 -0400)
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Wikipedia in English
This one involves a Chinese American who owns a liquor store and who is gunned down behind his counter in broad daylight. Suspicion soon falls on a Chinese triad who was extorting the store owner for "protection" money. The triad is arrested while trying to flee the country but before Bosch can do anything else, he receives a video on his mobile phone showing his daughter (who lives in Hong Kong) being abducted. The message is clear - back off this case or your daughter gets it.
Bosch immediately flies to Hong Kong to find and rescue his daughter. He knows he only has one day to find her and get back to LA before the triad suspect has to either be charged or released. As the clock ticks down, he gets help from his ex-wife and her Chinese partner and it isn't long before the tension flies. But he knows he needs help as he doesn't know the country, the language or the culture. The Hong Kong police won't help and he finds himself alone in a strange land, trying to find his daughter before she can be sold on for sex or organs.
An excellent book! Harry Bosch strikes back! :-) (