The Enemy and The Black Echo eBook Reviews

Someone had recommended Michael Connelly to me as an 'author to read' and so in my surgical preparations, I bought one of his books. Generally, I like to read the books in order so I started with #1 in the Harry Bosch series, The Black Echo. It's a crime novel about some dead bodies found in Los Angeles. Harry Bosch investigates them. He's a 'loner' not part of the LAPD family. He's under investigation with Internal Affairs. He teams up with the FBI. He's led down the wrong path, then he finds the right path. He smokes cartons of cigarettes in the process. This was a good decent crime novel. Not gory. Not too sexual. I was mildly surprised by the ending. Highly recommended and I've already requested other Harry Bosch books from the library.

True to my word, I did not read another Jack Reacher novel for a week because I was so disgusted with Tripwire's dumb Jack Reacher man-whore storyline. The Enemy was the Jack Reacher refresher I needed. It's told in the first person. Jack Reacher is still in the military. He's not even 30 yet! He stays true to his man-whore nature, but it's hardly the anchor for the book. At first I was worried, how could Jack Reacher do brilliant violence if he's still in the military? Doesn't the military frown on that? In any case, in The Enemy, the reader is introduced to Joe Reacher, Jack Reacher's brother who is murdered in the Killing Floor and Joséphine Reacher, Jack Reacher's mom who is dying. The only beef I had with this book is that Jack Reacher flies into LAX and says because of traffic it took him over an hour to reach Fort Irwin out in the Mojave desert. An hour? Try three at least, Reacher, because it would take me nearly an hour to get to Fort Irwin and if I made it to LAX in two hours I would consider it a miracle.