Angels Flight (Harry Bosch)

by Michael Connelly

2000

Status

Available

Publication

Grand Central Publishing (2000), Edition: Reprint, 480 pages

Description

An activist attorney is killed in a cute little L.A. trolley called Angels Flight, far from Harry Bosch's Hollywood turf. But the case is so explosive, and the dead man's enemies inside the L.A.P.D. are so numerous, that it falls to Harry to solve it. Now the streets are superheating. Harry's year old Vegas marriage is unraveling. And the hunt for a killer is leading Harry to another high-profile L.A. murder case, one where every cop had a motive. The question is, did any have the guts?

User reviews

LibraryThing member ecw0647
This has to be the best Harry Bosch novel of a very good series, and it is read by one of my favorites, Dick Hill, to boot. The great thing about Connelly’s hard-boiled police procedural series is that you get a real sense of detection as Harry and his partners, Ryder and Edgar, collect clues and
Show More
then put them together.

This particular case is incendiary. Howard Elias, a black civil rights attorney, is perhaps the LAPD’s most hated man in Los Angeles. He has made a practice of filing brutality suits against police officers. So when Bosch is pulled off his normal rotation and asked to head the investigation only to learn that the victim is Howard Elias, he realizes this will be an especially difficult case since the black community will assume a policeman killed Elias. Elias had been working on the “Black Warrior” case, in which a black man accused of the heinous murder of a small girl had been found innocent. Michael Harries, the accused, had charged the LAPD with torturing him in an attempt to get a confession (Black Warrior was the brand name of the LAPD’s pencils and it was alleged that Frank Sheehan, Bosch’s old partner, was one of those wielding the pencil that was inserted into Harris’s ears.

Another difficulty is that Harry is assigned his old nemesis Chastain, an IAD detective who has crossed swords with Harry before. Harry soon realizes that the evidence has been tampered with, and the upper echelon brass are looking for a scapegoat to prevent the city, fresh from the Rodney King incidents, from descending into more riots. Harry’s year-old marriage, to a former FBI agent, is unraveling as Eleanor leaves home, addicted to gambling casinos. Harry has many of his cherished assumptions overturned as he unravels this case, despite pressure from above, and the ultimate outcome reflects Connelly’s pure cynicism.

All of Connelly’s books are excellent, but in this, he has outdone himself. I found myself arriving home, reluctant to turn off the tape, sitting in the driveway as more details were revealed.
Show Less
LibraryThing member lsh63
This is a great series, which I highly recommend. In this one, sixth in the series, Detective Harry Bosch is called upon to investigate the murder of a high profile black lawyer whose claim to fame is suing the LAPD for civil rights violations made during their arrests. This case in turn leads to
Show More
another high profile case, the murder of a twelve year old girl.

While working night and day, Harry's one year old marriage is dissolving, he reunites with his old partner, and he has to play the chain of command game while trying to solve both murder cases.

I did not see the end coming, which was great!
Show Less
LibraryThing member edwardsgt
Angels Flight refers to a funicular in Los Angeles where a murder occurs. Harry Bosch as usual solves it in his usual style. A cracking good read.
LibraryThing member jodyjoujou
This book makes you always think and re-think who is the killer. Makes your mind work as a detective. I felt that I was another detective with the main character but all my predictions I could only tell myself. Michael Connelly makes you feel that you are not just a reader but brings you in another
Show More
world, the world of being a detective and thinking for yourself. The coolest thing I find in this series is that the plot is in my home town LA, which makes me enjoy more and identify more with the places and character. I recommend this series for people who loves mystery.
Show Less
LibraryThing member fw2334
I love the Harry Bosch series. I picture him as being an old, sexy, grouch.
LibraryThing member mrtall
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
Show More
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.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Darrol
This is the strongest I have read in this series so far. Like in all, I enjoy Bosch's conflicts with the chain of command. But this book illustrated more clearly how that conflict is rooted in his personal integrity. To paraphrase p. 296 of the hardback edition: The real shelter of home is inside
Show More
yourself.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Djupstrom
Not my favorite on the Harry Bosch novels, but it was still entertaining.
LibraryThing member Joycepa
6th in the Harry Bosch series.

LAPD stress levels being what they are, naturally Harry’s one-year old marriage is on the rocks. To distract him from his personal woes, he and his team are called in to lead the investigation of a high-profile black lawyer-activist whose main claim to fame has been
Show More
suing members of the LAPD for civil rights violations in investigations against racial minorities—and winning. His latest case, about to go to court, involves the alleged torture and wrongful arrest of an admittedly low-level criminal for abduction, rape and murder of Stacey Kincaid, the daughter of a wealthy and powerful southern California car dealer czar.

Because the murder of the black lawyer is so high-profile, the FBI is soon called into the case to help. Bosch splits up the investigation, giving the FBI the murder of the lawyer and taking on a new investigation of the Stacey Kincaid case, convinced that the two are connected. There will be more deaths before Harry manages to resolve the situation.

Unusually for Connelly’s previous books in the series, this story does not start off in a meandering way, following the way an investigation normally proceeds. The action picks up pretty swiftly and never lets up. The plotting is as usual excellent and the writing as well. However, Connelly does tend, at times, to descend into a sort of maudlin stickiness on the occasions when Harry is philosophizing, particularly about his line of work. It’s a very minor flaw but it’s there.

Character depictions are good; Edgar and Kimzim, his two team members, are well done although not terribly interesting. Harry’s relationship troubles are, quite frankly, not that interesting.

Still, the book is yet another excellent addition to the series, which is one I want to continue to read. But I must say that Dennis Lehane beats Connelly out in the genre.

Highly recommended.
Show Less
LibraryThing member debavp
Again, another surprise ending. I think I knew all along the outcome of this one, but Connelly puts enough twists and wrong turns in that will keep yousecond guessing yourself through this one.
LibraryThing member Daedalus
It makes me sick that this guy so regularly sells the crap out of his books. He's a poor writer, and this is a lame book. I'd sell it off, but I seem to have some inability to ever sell a book I own.
LibraryThing member Eren0317
Harry Bosch number 6, I do enjoy this series. Just enough to make me a little stressed for the main character, but he always gets out of it.
LibraryThing member claude_lambert
This is a good Connelly (most of his books are.) There is a fine observation of police procedures and behaviors. It is important in this book which turns around the murder of an activist lawyer hated by most of the LAPD. The mystery is well constructed, well written, and engrossing. Everything we
Show More
want ...
Show Less
LibraryThing member PIER50
Another good Harry Bosch thriller. A well conceived plot involving police procedures, racial tension and 'bad apple' cops overlaid against two murders on the Angels Flight railway in LA
LibraryThing member emigre
One of the best Bosch stories so far. Connelly really keeps the reader guessing about the real killer of a controversial civil rights lawyer in LA. It seems like just everyone is against Bosch in this book, his coworkers, his supervisors, the media, his family, and of course his usual enemies
Show More
antagonize him. The ending is classic Connelly, shocking yet just right.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Kathy89
Harry Boesch is one of my favorites and this is another good read. Harry's assigned to find out who murdered a high profile lawyer who is about to go to go to court with a big lawsuit against the LAPD. Meanwhile, his personal life is falling apart.
LibraryThing member pidgeon92
The second half was far more interesting than the first. It took me a week or so to get through the first 50%, and about a day to finish the last half.
LibraryThing member Amusedbythis
Slowly but surely, I am reading all of the Harry Bosch books on my Kindle courtesy of the local library. As I progress, they are increasingly interesting. They are quick reads.
LibraryThing member bohemiangirl35
This is a fairly early Harry Bosch novel, and one I should have read much earlier. The story covers events referenced often in later books.

Often, early books in a series are a little awkward until the main characters are fleshed out, but the writing was tight and the story held my interest the
Show More
whole time. Harry Bosch was his usual self and Kiz, Edgar and the others' personalities were already in place. There were plenty of twists and turns and a few surprises...a good mystery that kept me guessing.
Show Less
LibraryThing member page.fault
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
Show More
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 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
LibraryThing member wiccked
Another great Harry Bosch tale from Michael Connelly. I don't think I've read one yet that I haven't really really enjoyed!

It's interesting, that the more you read, and the more you get to know Harry, the more you (well, I) find that my initial impressions were totally wrong about him. I think now
Show More
that he's a lot more honest than I did at the start, and I think he's a much better cop too. In the good cop/bad cop sense of being a good cop. Despite the fact that he's been in trouble many times, I think the 'badness' that people may see is just a gruff front, for a person who's innately good.

I'm once more looking forward to my next Harry Bosch book!
Show Less
LibraryThing member wyvernfriend
not bad, based in LA, readable but again DUE PROCESS is a good thing.

Descriptions evocative enough that I kinda want to go look at the places.
LibraryThing member gypsysmom
I've really got to start reading this series in order. I like Harry Bosch as much for his personal life as for his detective work. I've read some of the early books and some of the later books and I'm starting to get confused. This one is set in 1999, two years after Trunk Music which I read two
Show More
years ago. I've also listened to two (read by Len Cariou who does a great job) and read one book that are later in the series. Now I think I need to fill in the gaps.

In this installment Harry has been married to Eleanor Wish for about a year and, as the book starts out, he is waiting up for her after midnight. Then a phone call comes from the Deputy Chief ordering him and his team downtown to work on a double homicide. This is curious because Bosch's team is not on duty rotation and downtown is outside of their district of Hollywood. However when they got to the murder scene, which is inside one of the train cars that go up and down Angels Flight, it becomes clear why they are called out. One of the murder victims is Howard Elias, a lawyer who has made a career of suing the LAPD. The division that would normally handle this is the Robbery and Homicide Department (RHD) but they are the defendants in a suit that is to go to trial the next week. Obviously they are in a conflict of interest. No one on Harry's team has ever been sued by Elias plus the fact that the other two detectives, Jerry Edgar and Kismin Rider are black, as is the victim, has the Deputy Chief thinking this would help quell the possibility of riots. Riots are a possibility because Elias was seen as a champion of the black people of LA and it will be supposed that one of the cops he has sued or is suing has committed this murder. There was another victim, a Latina maid who appears to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

When the team finally get access to Elias's files something turns up in the case against the RHD that leads Harry to examining the case that was the basis for the law suit. A young girl was abducted from her suburban bedroom in the middle of the night. The fingerprints of an ex-con, Michael Harris, were found on one of her school books in her room. Harris was brought in for questioning and he alleged that the detectives of RHD put plastic bags over his head and punctured his eardrum with a pencil. He never confessed but when the body of the girl was found two blocks away from his apartment he was charged with her murder. When he was acquitted Elias filed suit against the LAPD and the RHD detectives. Bosch finds that his friendship with one of the detectives has maybe skewed his feelings about the guilt of Harris.

So who did kill Elias? Was it a member of the LAPD? Was it someone else that he had received an anonymous tip about? Or was this a robbery gone wrong? Bosch and his team will discover all. Too bad Bosch doesn't have as much success with his love life. Eleanor announces she is moving out in the middle of the investigation and at the end of the book she is back in Las Vegas playing poker.
Show Less
LibraryThing member EmScape
The Harry Bosch books just keep getting better! Harry is tasked with investigating the murder of a prominent attorney who has hammered the LAPD for civil rights abuses. It's strongly suspected that the murderer is a police officer and Harry is one of the few on the force who can be trusted to
Show More
investigate cleanly and not do a half-ass job in order to protect the reputation of the department or a fellow officer. Also, he's married to Eleanor Wish, but that's not going well, since she seems to want to do nothing but hang out at casinos and is also resentful of Harry's work.
Great plotting, believable fake-outs, satisfying ending. What more could you want?
Show Less
LibraryThing member lbswiener
Angels Flight: A Harry Bosch Novel is another excellent suspenseful murder mystery that originates on the famous Angels Flight funicular in Los Angeles. With no idea of why or who killed the people our hero Harry Bosch was able to solve the case. Four stars were awarded to this original story. It
Show More
is highly recommended for Harry Bosch fans.
Show Less

Awards

Barry Award (Nominee — Novel — 2000)
Bancarella (2000)

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

1999

Physical description

453 p.; 4.25 inches

ISBN

0446607274 / 9780446607278

Barcode

1601740
Page: 1.8826 seconds