nomadreader

The backstory: After enjoying the Bosch  pilot on Amazon , I decided to finally  start reading the Michael Connelly series so many, including Alafair Burke , one of my favorite crime novelists, rave about. The basics: The Black Echo , the first novel in Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch series, introduces readers to the LAPD homicide detective. When a dead body is discovered in a pipe, Bosch recognizes the victim as a fellow tunnel rat from his days in Vietnam. What otherwise might have been classified as a junkie dead from an overdose turns into a complicated, intriguing mystery stretching back to the Vietnam War itself. My thoughts: Originally published in 1992, The Black Echo  is a delightful time capsule into its time. As close as 1992 seems, the Vietnam War is closer to it than it is to today. This mystery is firmly grounded in the lingering impact of Vietnam, and it even takes its title from a War reference: "Meadows was something else…. Back then, we were all j...

The backstory: The Lotus Eaters  was a 2010 New York Times Notable Book . It is Tatjana Soli's first novel. The basics: Helen Adams is a photographer covering the Vietnam War. The novel opens in 1975, as Saigon is falling. Then the action returns to Helen's first days in Vietnam. My thoughts: The reader is instantly immersed in the chaos of the war's last days in Saigon, and it was initially a (and intentionally, I presume) jarring experience. I was intrigued and relieved when the action shifted back to the story's beginning shortly thereafter. Glimpsing the after provided a richness to the earlier events and instantly allowed the reader to see how much the characters and their relationships with one another changed during the war. Seeing the end at the beginning enriched the story immensely (it's a technique I appreciated in White Woman on the Green Bicycle -- one of my favorite reads of 2010 --too) and the novel still maintained suspense and intrigue. For ...