Michael Connelly introduced us to Hieronymus Bosch with The Black Echo (1992). There has followed a whole series of Bosch crime novels, and most recently, the TV show Bosch (2015). A Darkness More Than Night <1> is from the book series, and it's an intriguing, page-turning thriller. Part of the novel's interest derives from the Bosch name. The association to the 15th century Dutch painter Bosch raises criminal suspicions against Detective Bosch in Darkness.
II.
Edward Gunn was known to the Los Angeles police department prior to his killing, with his string of offences involving public intoxication, drunk driving, soliciting for prostitution, and the murder of a prostitute. Gunn has been the victim of a strangulation, staged to send a message. Retired FBI profiler Terry McCaleb is brought in for his expertise on the case.
Looking over the evidence and the crime scene, McCaleb is first led to the artist Bosch. Whoever murdered Gunn has deliberately connoted Bosch paintings - obsessive depictions of sin, and the infernal punishments awaiting the sinful - with their crime.
Meanwhile, Det. Harry Bosch is in court as a prosecution witness, in the murder trial of narcissistic film director, David Storey. Jody Krementz, an aspiring young actor, was found strangled in her home one morning. She had spent the night before at Storey's home on Mulholland Drive, in the Hollywood Hills. As the investigating officer, Bosch believes Storey to be guilty of murder.
But is Bosch himself guilty in some way? Terry McCaleb's analysis forces him to consider Harry Bosch a possible suspect in the strangulation killings.
III.
The dazzling glamour that might conceal a secret darkness in Hollywood is a theme that's been explored by many different writers, many different ways. Michael Connelly's A Darkness More Than Night makes a case with Bosch, the painter of hellfire, and the detective named after him.
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<1>Connelly, Michael. A Darkness More Than Night. Little, Brown & Company, 2001.
