Angels Flight

According to my records, I read this in December of 2019, but I left no review, and now that I've (technically) reread it, I can't imagine why. It's a barn-burner, full of Bosch's deep skepticism and suspicion of his own police force, full of seamy stories and liars and losses, Harry's included. There might have been a time I wasn't prepared to dive back into this series, but it sat well with me now.

Harry is called in to a murder of a prominent defense attorney and gadfly of the police, not the honorable kind but definitely an effective one from his own perspective. Suing the City of Los Angeles is a lucrative business. Of course, suspicion falls on the cops themselves, and the city tries to keep the lid on potential riots.

But there show more are a lot of moving parts here, a lot of people with agendas and secrets. By the end of the story, we know who they are, or were. I'm sure we will meet those still alive down the road. show less

I'm a big fan of Detective Bosch and this mystery in the series delivers a serious punch. With the haunting of the 1992 riots, Bosch is put on a case with tones of racism and police brutality, a delicate line to toe since the murderer is most likely an officer.
This story was interesting from a political, procedural and social perspective and the multitude of layers kept me on my seat. I did not see the end coming and while the last pages seem to end abruptly, I think this is one of the better Bosch stories.

I'm on a Harry Bosch jag this year, and loving it. Not every entry in the series is up to snuff, but none of them are irredeemable. [Angels Flight] is one of the best entries - one of my favorite recurring characters, Eleanor Wish, features prominently, as Harry's marriage short marriage breaks down. Harry is investigating the murder of an attorney who has made a practice out of excoriating the Los Angeles Police Department. And the murder has its roots in a large civil rights case against some LAPD detectives - so, the usual suspects here carry a gun and a badge. Harry, always loyal only to the victim, burns through the case, leaving a wake ash and debris.

Interestingly, the more of these I read, I understand that Connelly and the show more television show writers put all of the plots and characters into a mixer and turned it on high. The result is that you can read these books and watch the television show without ruining either experience.

5 bones!!!!!
Highly recommended show less

Angel's Flight is one of the more ambitious of Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch novels. The key victim is a black lawyer who specializes in suing the LAPD. There's loads of topical substance here -- race relations, intradepartmental politics and maneuvering, tensions between cops and FBI agents, and more. Angel's Flight is often held up as one of the best of the Bosch novels, but I think its flaws -- it's just a smidgen over the top with Boschian righteousness, in particular -- hold it back. Never the less, it's a very high-quality contemporary noir that I recommend highly.

When Harry Bosch is sent out to investigate the death of accomplished lawyer Howard Elias he could never have anticipated the political minefield he is about to step into. At its heart this is a story of police corruption and the length that some senior officers will go to further their career, and in the process turn a blind eye to the stinking underbelly of so called law enforcement in the city of Los Angeles. The novel is written at a time when the mishandled case of one retired football player, OJ Simpson, and the beating of Rodney King are still fresh in the minds of so many Americans...."Everyone was oblivious to the seething hatred and anger that churned in other parts of the city- beneath the surface like an undiscovered fault show more line waiting to open up and swallow all above."..... Yet against all of that, one grizzled detective, is prepared to take a noble stand against evil and wrong doing where ever that may occur.

I adore the writings of Michael Connelly and his depiction of life, its hardships and cruelties through the eyes of one honest and incorruptible policeman the great antihero Harry Bosch. I sympathize with his pain, and his longing for some inner peace, his search for a partner, a soulmate someone to share his anguish and mop his fevered brow...It is the style of writing and Connelly's ability to get under the skin of Bosch, laying him open to an eager reader, that makes for some wonderful thoughtful observations...."The rich kept you waiting so that you could feel free to admire all that they had."..."Happy is the man who finds refuge in himself."...."He believed in the one shot. He didn't know if he'd had his yet- it wasn't the kind of thing you knew and understood until you looked back over your life as an old man."...."It's about hope, Detective she continued. Most of the people in the minority communities of Los Angeles have no power, have no money, have no voice. They subsist on hope for these things. And Howard Elias was hope for many of them".....

Everyone in this book is perfect from the strong storyline to the well drawn and very believable characters, from the sad and deeply troubled ex cop Frankie Sheehan to the political ambitions of Deputy Chief Irvin Irving. I rarely ever read a book by Michael Connelly that is not worthy of at least a 5 star review and this is no exception. Highly Recommended. show less

With this sixth novel in the Harry Bosch series I have come to envision Michael Connelly as my number one go-to author when I am in the mood for some crime/thriller fiction, and I’m now quite ready to explore his writings beyond this more famous series, because I’m certain that I will find myself equally enthralled by the brilliant combination of narrative skills and engaging storytelling that is the author’s trademark. And there is a great deal of Connelly works to explore, indeed…

Angels Flight is the best Bosch novel I’ve read so far, showing a confident mastery of pace and characterization whose growth I have witnessed throughout the previous books I read, and also incorporating several social and moral themes that feel show more completely actual even now, more than twenty years after the book’s first publication. The title refers to what I’ve learned is a famous Los Angeles landmark, a cable car system connecting a lower area of the city with one of its hills: when Bosch is called on the scene to investigate a double murder, he discovers that one of the victims is Howard Elias, an African-American attorney well-known for his numerous lawsuits against police brutality. Elias was due to start shortly on the proceedings against the detectives who caused grievous injuries to the suspect in a kidnapping and homicide: the man was later declared not guilty once the real perpetrator was apprehended, and is now suing the city for the barbarous way the interrogation was carried out.

The investigation is therefore fraught with many social and political pitfalls, not least the growing suspicion that Elias might have been killed by a police officer, which is causing mounting unrest and the concern that riots might explode once more in a city that has not forgotten the Rodney King case from a few years before. Bosch and his team - the old-time partner Jerry Edgar and the newest acquisition Kizmin Rider - must be very careful in the way they move, both because the media eyes are on them and also because they have to navigate the dangerous waters of public relations and departmental policy, which manage to place some irksome fetters on Bosch’s methods in his unrelenting search for truth. Moreover, Bosch is dealing with personal problems, since his year-old marriage seems to be already over and he’s facing the very real possibility of finding himself alone again after gaining a measure of happiness and stability with Eleanor: the Harry Bosch we see here is at his emotional weakest, once again having to experience the heavy sense of loss that has been a constant theme in his life - this unexpected vulnerability has the effect of making him appear more human, which adds some quite welcome softness to a character that so far has been depicted as harshly inexorable in his quest for justice.

Having met these stories first through their televised version, I am once again delighted in discovering that the two mediums are quite different in the way the facts are told, showing marked differences both in the final outcome and in other details, which results in my always being surprised at how events turn out in the books: my reading experience is never compromised - for want of a better word - by the knowledge gained through the TV show, and I’ve come to envision the two versions of this series as complementary and enhancing each other. A great combination indeed.

Back to Angels Flight, there is a pervading sense of uneasiness running throughout the book, partly due to the tense situation created by Elias’ murder, but also coming from the constantly shifting suspicion that jumps from one subject to another as the investigation progresses in fits and starts, encountering a good number of false leads and willful misdirections. Bosch and his team have to deal not only with the usual difficulties inherent in a murder investigation, but also with politics and with the institutional optics which require a solution that will keep the brewing troubles under control, rather than finding the real perpetrator of the crime, and that’s something that goes against Bosch’s personal inclinations. In the end it all boils down to a contest between opposing drives, the resolution bringing no catharsis at all because it becomes quite clear that there are no winners and losers in such a situation - everyone loses here, the concept of justice being the greatest victim. This conflict is embodied by the constant clash between Bosch and Chief Irving, the political face of the police department: unlike his screen version, Irving is far less tolerant of Bosch’s insubordination and unconventional tactics, being even more concerned with public perception here than he looks in the tv show. I found the willpower matches between the two of them quite fascinating, because the author is able to convey both characters’ emotions through the heated exchanges where the unsaid carries the same weight, if not more, of what is openly expressed: it’s fascinating to see how they represent the two faces of the same coin, and how they ultimately balance each other out in pursuing what they believe to be the best for their city.

On top of the engrossing events at its core, Angels Flight portrays some painful social conflicts that are still unresolved now, twenty years after the novel was written, and therefore it feels just as actual as the fictional facts it describes: where it’s somewhat depressing to acknowledge that after more than two decades things have not changed much - if at all - on the other hand this story is imbued with a sense of reality that strengthens its narrative impact and turns it into a far more powerful novel than might have been originally intended. show less

Because of its emotional and powerful confrontation of the racial tensions in LA, this is one of the most powerful stories in the series. It was a profoundly uncomfortable read. The narrator's repressed anger at the fallout of the LA race riots of '92 is palpable, but so his the guilt. The book clearly displays that racism isn't a binary trait; it's a continuum. And being white in America means that you are racist to some degree and fall somewhere on that continuum. In LA, where fear and resentment on both sides became even more pronounced after Rodney King, the racial divide seems even starker. Harry Bosch, though less racist than some of the furious and bigoted police officers he associates with, has his own limitations. He starts out show more feeling positive that he is totally unbiased. After all, his two working partners are black. How could he be racist? And yet he immediately assumes that a black man he encounters is lying about police brutality. He is judgemental of lawyers who "play the race card," but views the issue from only one perspective. Most despicably to me, he first refuses to let his partners be used as camera fodder, then uses them himself--and yet doesn't see this as a serious betrayal. As the story continues, he is forced to confront his own biases, and in turn, forced me to confront my own. I still feel uncomfortable with what I see as racial resentment colouring the narrator's point of view. Yes, perhaps Connelly tried to add humanity through Kiz and Edgar, but overall, I felt that he characterized the African-American community as a vicious and unintelligent mob, ready to devolve into senseless violence at the least provocation. I think a read of this book needs to be paired with a read of a book written from the perspective of a person of color. I read it at the same time as Little Scarlet, which confronts the race riots of '65, and this helped to bring into stark contrast the biases of both the narrative and the characters. Overall, I see the story as powerful and valuable because both its acknowledged and unacknowledged racism forces the reader into a confrontation of his or her unconscious prejudices. show less