Michael Connelly hits another home run with this book. It is a quick, easy, and fun read. I have read and continue to read everything he writes - never disappointed. ( )

Michael Connelly reveals another side of his protagonist, Harry Bosch. This time not so nice. We might have expected Harry to have a dark side considering his work as a homicide detective and immersion in all its associated nastiness. But this Harry is not someone we want to get very close with.

It all starts slowly enough with Harry waiting for some hapless LA citizen to be murdered so he can go to work. The victim turns out to be a Chinese-American shopkeeper gunned down in his convenience store, sited in a risky neighborhood, who is known by Harry from a case that occurred years earlier. Harry is drawn to conclude a possible triad connection due to evidence of prior collections coinciding with the day and time of the murder.

As this unfolds we are also told about Harry's daughter who lives in Hong Kong with his gambler ex wife. This would seem to be incidental until Harry, in hot pursuit of a triad suspect, gets a threatening call to drop the case - or else. Or else turns up quickly in the kidnapping of his daughter in Hong Kong.

Needless to say Harry segues into an avenging wildman, cutting a bloody swath through Hong Kong and Kowloon to recover her. Saying more would spoil your read.

The story is almost believable and Harry's character comes back to normal as he winds up the original case in LA after returning from dealing with Hong Kong's nine dragons, which is explained well in the book. The descriptions of Hong Kong and Kowloon, including the infamous Chungking Mansions, are well done.

All in all, an enjoyable read.

Harry Bosch is muddling along, working on getting used to a new office setting, a partner who's still a little gunshy and being a far away father to his teen daughter. A murder of an Asian liquor store owner eventually leads to the involvement of the Asian Gang Unit. Harry brings in a suspect and almost immediately, his family is in peril. His ex-wife and daughter live in Hong Kong and the case he has caught has long arms. Much of the story takes place in Hong Kong and Connelly navigates those foreign streets well. I've only read a couple of the Bosch books, and not really in any particular order. Nine Dragons is a solid mystery and the reader doesn't need to have read previous novels to become immersed in the story. ( )

9 Dragons by Michael Connelly is the latest installment in a series of novels focusing on Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch of the LAPD. There's a shooting that may involve a Hong Kong triad, a reluctant partner, a detective from the Asian Gang Unit that Harry's not sure he can trust. That's just a typical day for a fictional detective, until the case strikes close to home: Harry's teenage daughter, Maddie, goes missing and he receives a video from her kidnappers. She is clearly in danger and there's every indication that it is tied to the Triad shooting. Harry is on the next plane to Hong Kong and he intends to bring his daughter back, no matter what.

I am a big fan of detective novels, and I love a good series -- you get a chance to get to know the characters, to see them succeed (or fail) and to see what happens in their lives. Harry Bosch is a great example. We've seen him through various ups and downs during his time with the LAPD (IAD investigations, transfers from Robbery Homicide to the cold case squad and back again) and turmoil in his personal life, including having his home destroyed in an earthquake. We saw him briefly married to Eleanor Wish, a former FBI agent who is now a professional poker player in Hong Kong; their daughter -- a daughter Harry never knew he had -- lives with her mother overseas.

The story starts with a shooting in a liquor store; not an uncommon occurrence in LA. The victim is an elderly Chinese man, someone Bosch met many years ago, and he feels a strong connection to the case. He's a little out of his element -- he doesn't speak the language or understand the family's customs. Consulting with the Asian Gang Unit leads to suspicions that a Triad may be involved -- the victim appears to be paying off a customer with a suspicious tattoo on a surveillance tape.

Because Chu is unable to get a quick translation of the Chinese tattoos on the victim (which makes Bosch suspiscious), Bosch sends pictures of them to his daughter in Hong Kong. Maddie is able to make the translation and although Bosch cautions her to keep quiet about it, well, she's a teenaged girl with pictures of a real-life murder victim on her cell phone! She is bound to tell somebody. A few hours later, Bosch has a video message showing his daughter, tied to a chair, the victim of a kidnapping.

Hong Kong is a very different world from Los Angeles, but Bosch is determined to protect his daughter. His ex-wife, Eleanor, and her colleague, Sun Yee, are able to provide some help, but Harry is running on instinct. He needs to find his little girl before she disappears into an Asian underworld of triads and human traffickers.

The story moves at a whirlwind pace and sweeps you right along with it. The characters are real and honest -- there are no saints in this story and they will get a chance to try and atone for their sins. There are mistakes and mis-steps along with flashes of brilliant investigating. It's a terrific addition to a terrific series. ( )

Early reviewers
This is the first Michael Connelly book that I have read and it is a good escapist thriller. As for Harry Bosch, well, he is not the brightest light. One reviewer noted that the bull in the china shop is back and there were other comments to the same effect. Harry lets testosterone be his guide. Give him a situation and he rushes in. So when his 13 year old daughter is kidnapped in Hong Kong, Harry springs into action but with no real plan. The narrative is exciting and frequently humerous, though perhaps given the bodies strewn in Harry's wake, amusement is less than sensitive. The descriptions of Hong Kong are well researched and entertaining and the action never stops. Harry is not a clever detective but sometimes he looks back and sees that he really messed things up.

"There were things that didn't make sense to him without having all the information, but there was still a chronology and a chain of events that he could put together. And as he did so , he knew that everything led back to his own actions."

But Harry never thinks too deeply about anything and he moves on quickly to his next brilliant move.
I spoke to a friend who has read many of the Harry Bosch novels who said that he did not finish a couple of books because he was so frustrated with Harry's stupidity and it spoiled the plot.

Connelly's Harry Bosch series reminds me a little of the very successful Bob Skinner mysteries by Quintine Jardin. Like Harry, Bob is not the brightest light but he is very entertaining and quite possibly realistic. So you have to embrace that concept to enjoy these books. ( )