"The Black Echo"

"The Black Echo" is apparently Michael Connelly's first crime novel and it is a terrific read.  In it we are introduced to Detective Harry Bosch, a former top homicide detective, who has been demoted to Los Angeles' Hollywood division after he killed a man in an officer involved shooting.  Bosch is called out to investigate a dead body found overnight in a drain pipe.  What appears to at first be a routine overdose case turns into a homicide investigation with ties to the FBI when Bosch recognizes the dead body as someone he once was a "tunnel rat" with in Vietnam.

Unfortunately, Bosch has generated a lot of hard feelings among his superiors and the internal affairs division (IAD) because of his unwillingness to be a "team" player plus his previous shooting of a high profile suspect.  When he gets himself assigned to work as a liaison to the FBI on an unsolved high profile robbery that might have ties to his dead body, an IAD investigation that has been quietly instigated previously is not called off.  The result - while he's working with female FBI agent, Eleanor Wish, his every move is being monitored by a couple of IAD men, Lewis and Clark.

Bosch and Wish are conducting a very thorough investigation and turn up some surprising leads but this case is full of twists and turns and multiple surprise endings.  It kept me guessing till the very end and I suspect (and am hoping) there are more Bosch novels out there for me to read.  pazt