Echo Park (novel)
 First edition | |
| Author | Michael Connelly |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Series | Harry Bosch, #12 |
| Genre | police procedural, crime fiction, mystery |
| Publisher | Little, Brown (USA), Orion (UK) |
| Publication place | United States |
Published in English | September 2006 (USA), September 2007 (UK) |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 446 pp. |
| ISBN | 0-7528-6584-6 (UK), (USA) |
| OCLC | 67374799 |
| Preceded by | The Lincoln Lawyer |
| Followed by | The Overlook |
Echo Park is the 17th novel by American crime-writer Michael Connelly, and the twelfth featuring the Los Angeles detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch. It was published in 2006.
Plot summary
[edit]In 1993, LAPD detectives Harry Bosch and Jerry Edgar investigate the disappearance of young equestrian Marie Gesto. Bosch and Edgar had suspected Anthony Garland, the son of powerful industrialist Thomas Rex "T-Rex" Garland, who had dated a woman who closely resembled Gesto and had broken up with him due to his temper. She also had lived at the apartment building where Gesto's car was found. However, despite several rounds of questioning, the detectives never found enough evidence to charge Anthony and the case went cold. Bosch had worked Gesto case as time allowed, calling her parents several times a year so they knew their daughter was not forgotten.
Thirteen years later, Bosch works in the Open-Unsolved Unit at Parker Center, going over cold cases with his most recent partner, Kizmin "Kiz" Rider. A serendipitous traffic stop in Echo Park results in the arrest of Raynard Waits after body parts are found in his van. Waits soon confesses to a string of slayings involving prostitutes and runaways, as well as to two earlier murders: that of pawnshop owner Daniel Fitzpatrick during the 1992 riots, the other of Marie Gesto. When the Gesto case files are reexamined, it seems that Waits had called the police shortly after the murder, pretending to be a tipster, but Bosch and Edgar never followed up on it. Without this costly error, Waits could have been implicated within a week of the disappearance and never gone on to kill more victims.
Bosch takes the Gesto files to his ex-girlfriend Rachel Walling, an FBI agent and former criminal profiler. Walling suggests that "Raynard Waits" might not be his true identity; Raynard is an unusual name, reminding Walling of Reynard the Fox, a trickster character from French folklore. Bosch and Walling speculate why Waits might have been carrying the remains through Echo Park, when nearby Griffith Park offered a much larger and more rugged area to hide human remains. Bosch suspects Waits felt comfortable in Echo Park, and that the investigation into his crimes had overlooked an important connection to this neighborhood. Bosch and Walling rekindle a romance that ended abruptly several years earlier.
Under questioning, Waits confesses to killing Fitzpatrick as a random act of violence, and to raping and strangling Gesto the following year due to her fitting his fantasy. The disappearance of a middle-class woman attracted too much attention, so Waits subsequently targeted people on the fringes of society. Waits agrees to take police to Gesto's body in exchange for a plea bargain that will spare him from the death penalty. Bosch, Rider and an LAPD investigation team accompany Waits and his attorney, Maury Swann, to an isolated area in Beachwood Canyon where human remains are buried in a shallow grave.
When departing from the burial site, Richard O'Shea, the prosecuting attorney, orders Waits' handcuffs removed so he can descend a ladder. Waits uses this opportunity to the weapon of Detective Freddy Olivas. He shoots three officers, killing Olivas and wounding Rider, and escapes into the woods. While Rider is treated at the hospital, Bosch is taken off active duty pending review of the shooting. Forensic dentistry confirms the remains are Gesto's.
Bosch learns that O'Shea has ordered the videotape of the Beachwood Canyon expedition edited to remove his order that Waits' handcuffs be removed, in an attempt to avoid any career-damaging fallout. Also, while examining copies of case files he made before quitting the LAPD several years earlier, Bosch discovers no evidence that Waits contacted police after Gesto disappeared. He suspects that the "51 sheets" (typed summaries of handwritten notes) were altered to make Bosch appear responsible for allowing Waits to escape notice. He comes to suspect that Olivas and O'Shea doctored the 51 sheets as part of a plot to help O'Shea's bid to become district attorney by nabbing a serial killer and closing eleven open murders. Waits, Bosch thinks, was not guilty of the Gesto murder but played along to avoid execution and hoping for a possible chance to escape.
With qualified support from Walling, Bosch sets out to investigate his hunches and find where Waits might be hiding. Clues on the Beachwood Canyon trail, like recently-cut tree limbs, indicate Waits might have been told where to find the burial site despite having never been there. Keisha Russell, Bosch's press contact, confirms that T-Rex was a major (albeit indirect) contributor to O'Shea's election campaign, causing Bosch to theorize that Waits' confession was intended to permanently clear Anthony. Bosch and Walling also discover evidence that Fitzpatrick was not a random victim: he had been murdered by a disgruntled customer who soon afterwards falsified a birth certificate to change his name to Raynard Waits. Abel Pratt, Bosch's superior, cautions him about investigating the case after he has been removed from active duty.
After Waits kidnaps another woman, Walling obtains a copy of his juvenile criminal record in hopes it will contain information about where he might be holding her. She and Bosch learn that Waits was born to an underage mother who lost custody of the boy in his infancy. Waits bounced between foster homes and youth detention facilities for most of his young life, exhibiting extreme anger towards women; the only stable period of his life was when he lived with the Saxons, a foster family in Echo Park.
Bosch and Walling locate the Saxon residence, where his elderly foster mother informs them that "Robbie" rents the garage. Walling urges Bosch to wait for backup, but he insists on entering sooner because the kidnapping victim is at risk. Inside the garage, Waits fires upon the investigators from a concealed tunnel built into the hillside abutment behind the house. Bosch crawls into the tunnel, which is filled with bones from Waits's victims. Hearing the victim's whimpers, Bosch attempts to establish rapport with Waits by sharing his experiences in the foster system. Waits admits that Swann approached him with O'Shea's deal, which he accepted because it gave him a chance to escape. Bosch urges Waits to turn himself in, but in the end is forced to shoot and kill him.
Bosch confronts O'Shea with Waits's final confession, but O'Shea denies any wrongdoing. Pratt issues a veiled warning to Bosch, saying that while the Waits shooting appears justified, high-ranking LAPD officers support O'Shea and the forensic data could be slanted against Bosch if O'Shea's actions are publicized. Refusing to play along, Bosch learns from Edgar that Pratt had been following him continually since he was removed from active duty. Bosch reevaluates his presumptions, now believing that the 51 sheets were most likely altered by Pratt and that Olivas and O'Shea were duped along with him. Surveillance proves that Pratt is cheating on his wife with a younger woman in the police personnel office; in a divorce, Pratt could lose everything and thus might be desperate for cash.
At Swann's house, Bosch and Walling discover Pratt attempting to intimidate Swann, overhearing damning details of the Waits scheme. Both men are arrested. Pratt offers Bosch a deal: if Pratt keeps freedom and his pension plan, he will go on the record saying that Olivas and O'Shea were not involved and obtain evidence that the Garlands were behind the scheme. Bosch reluctantly decides that letting Pratt walk is a price worth paying to finally catch Gesto's killer. Pratt meets the Garlands in a public park to demand more money. An FBI team, along with O'Shea, use video cameras and parabolic microphones to record the conversation. T-Rex admits to previously paying $1 million to Pratt. When Pratt goes to the men's room to communicate with the FBI team, Anthony follows and kills him. Moments later, FBI agents confront and shoot Anthony.
Walling confronts Bosch with her suspicions that he orchestrated the shooting of Pratt, having known that Anthony was hot-tempered and had a concealed carry permit due to his job as a security guard. Bosch denies it, but she departs in anger. Rider is released from the hospital, telling Bosch that she has decided to change careers to an office job with the chief of police where, she says, she can possibly protect Bosch from bureaucracy and office politics. He approves, glad that she will be one floor above him like a guardian angel.
Trivia
[edit]Raynard Waits was described as a former client of Mickey Haller, a defense attorney character who also stars in a series of books by Connelly. However, this book has no mention of Haller's kinship to Harry Bosch.
Cecil C. Dobbs, a character featured in The Lincoln Lawyer from the Haller series, was described as working for the family of the wealthy suspect.
Harry Bosch gives his cell phone number out in the book. Those who dial the number reach a voice mail account for Harry Bosch and can leave a message.
The first chapter was adapted as a short film. Tim Abell played Bosch, whilst crime author Gar Anthony Haywood played Jerry Edgar. Len Cariou was the narrator.
Raynard Waits was portrayed by Jason Gedrick in the TV adaptation Bosch.
Jason Gedrick who played Raynard Waits in the “Bosch” TV adaptation (2015-) and Tim Abel who played Bosch in the Echo Park short film, both starred in the TV show “Trouble Creek”, 2017
