Shop Blog > Recommendation > Nine Dragons
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Nine Dragons
- Little, Brown and Company
- 2009-10-13
- 106Rank
- $27.99
- See details at Amazon
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L is for Lousy
I'm thinking the last book of Connelly's that I really liked was "Echo Park" or maybe "The Overlook", and those were a couple or three years ago. In the meantime, something has happened to Connelly and his writing and none of it is good. It's not the same guy writing anymore, he used to write from the heart and the guts and now he writes from the cash register. The quality of "his" books has been eroding steadily, certainly since "The Brass Verdict". He's been churning out books like a whirligig run amok and I think it's high time I got off the Michael Connelly Special, I'd rather hoof it. "9 Dragons" is more metaphor than thriller and bad metaphor at that, it's predictable to a fault and none of it's plot twists were surprising or unexpected. Bosch is unrecognizable and the prose is excessively tedious, the "stall" seems to have become Connelly's favorite trick, that and lame metaphors. Bosch like a baseball player, Bosch like David Hockney, Bosch laying down a heavy bass line, propelling the investigation as Ron Carter's bass drove Miles Davis' horn, it just never stops! I really liked repetitious riffing like: '(his)left eye was prosthetic. He had a glass eye!' That was really in there! The books whizzes on to the lame if not predictable finale and I am through. There was a time when I prided myself on the completeness of my Michael Connelly reading. You had me for 21 & 1/3 books Michael but I'm stopping before you disappoint again!
