The Narrows

Book : The Narrows
Auther : Michael Connelly
Rating : ***


Warning: This review is full of spoilers so return to it after you read the book.

Michael Connelly’s ‘The Narrows’ starts with such a big promise but fails to keep it.
Two stories runs in parallel in it.
In first one, Rachel Walling got a call at mid-night from LAPD tell her that the Poet is resurfaced. He has sent a message in the name of her and a clue in form of a GPS system. This is the call she waiting for. Currently, She is thrown in South Dakota Division from last seven years - for her act in “The Poet”. She has't quit yet as she doesn’t want them to win.
Second Harry Bosch is retired now but he is appointed to investigate murder of former detective friend Terry McCaleb. Terry is former LAPD cop we are familiar in other Connelly’s novels. Harry got his cases that he was working on before his death. In that he learns about the Poet.
Rachel is told at murder scenes in LA that she is just an observer here. It’s not her case.
She wants Poet ahead of them.
In between Rachel and Harry cross paths. Rachel took chance to join with Harry to catch Poet. And on.
Now as plot seems extremely interesting and it is. But there are places where it falters.

***START OF SPOILERS***
“There are no such thing in an investigation as coincidence” I think Connelly has forgotten his own words in the same novel.
I truly understand there are things that govern by instincts but hitting bull’s bye to such a critical points based just on that, well I am not convinced.
Harry has to find from where Poet’s operating, his third point in Terry’s triangular theory and that just came out on instinct. The last clue that points them to Poet’s next target, a picture that got destroyed in the explosion which was seen ‘”by chance” by Harry again and then the haft burnt page- which he figures out on mere coincidence who was in that picture and what those words meant actually!!! I was just disappointed with it otherwise will be a solid novel. And then the most disappointing part- its climax, before I read this novel some people had compared Poet’s character to Hannibal Lecture. No such thing at least in this novel. He mere served as a villain in the plot. That’s it. -kept a stack of corpses just to announce he is smart enough to kill those innocent people walked to LA just to take vacation?? What happened to that Poet that successfully disguised himself inside academy for years and targeted FBI agents not some helpless strangers??

On positive side, Connelly’s certain dialogues are at his best. Certain monologues from Harry are real high-moments in here. Pace is not a problem at all. It moves with ease. There many sequences here that keep on us the edge. Evidence gathering, the way case moves and makes its turns is again good ones. But logic behind them on major turns is not striking. I expected more from Connelly. There are certain facts astonished me that we are under constant impression that Poet has killed Terry and now its Rachel’s turn but we came to know, Poet is just drawing both of his protégés to the place where he has kept his victims - challenging them to catch him and figure out what are his real motives behind this return after so many years- the cause of his return this time that he is going to finish his so long awaited work which he couldn’t finish in the past. He didn’t kill Terry and never intended to any one of them, not this time at least. And that chewing gum clue is imaginative. Not too many clues of this quality are here.
***END OF SPOILERS***

Bottom Line: The Narrows is good but is not smashing for sure.