The End of Harry Bosch

If you haven’t been paying attention, today brings us the final, 16th installment of Michael Connelly’s New York Times Magazine serial, “The Overlook.” This Sunday fiction series, which features Connelly’s detective Harry Bosch, received a good deal of publicity before it commenced its run in September, but doesn’t seem to have generated much buzz since. Strange, considering that this novella has every bit as much personality and drama as Connelly’s longer Bosch stories. The author sums up the tale’s plot on his Web site:

In his first case since he left the LAPD’s Open Unsolved Unit for the prestigious Homicide Special squad, Harry Bosch is called out to investigate a murder that may have chilling consequences for national security.

A doctor with access to a dangerous radioactive substance is found murdered on the overlook above the Mulholland Dam. Retracing his steps, Harry learns that a large quantity of radioactive cesium was stolen shortly before the doctor’s death. With the cesium in unknown hands, Harry fears the murder could be part of a terrorist plot to poison a major American city.

Soon, Bosch is in a race against time, not only against the culprits, but also against the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI (in the form of Harry’s one-time lover Rachel Walling), who are convinced that this case is too important for the likes of the LAPD. It is Bosch’s job to prove them all wrong.

Currently, all 16 installments of “The Overlook” are available through the New York Times Magazine Web site, together with a page where Connelly answers questions put to him by readers. However, this story will soon be published in book form, with “new, never-before published material,” as the author promises. It’s scheduled for release in the States at the end of May, and in the UK in June.