Void Moon

Okay so I OD’d on crime fiction! Yes, I burnout and took a much longer than anticipated hiatus from the blog which I must apologize for.

.....So what do you do when you need a punch to get you back in the game….you read a Michael Connelly book pronto! I went with Void Moon, an older Connelly book that I never picked up because it wasn’t part of the Harry Bosch series.

Void Moon is an interesting departure from the Bosch series because it flips the notion of good guy and bad guy on its head. The story follows Cassie Black, an ex-con out on parole after serving time for manslaughter. Black was a professional thief, assistant to her former lover, Max, who died tragically on their last job. Cassie has never quite recovered from his death and seems to biding time trying to figure out her next move in life. Then one day she finds out she needs to move out of the country quickly (I won’t spoil why but you can almost guess) which of course doesn’t mesh with parole, so bye bye straight life hello crime time! She contacts Max’s half brother, who formerly set up their jobs, and asks for something new. Of course the job she is sent out on isn’t what it was supposed to be and Cassie finds herself sitting on a pile of money supposedly earmarked for the mob. At this point Connelly switches the book’s focus from Cassie to Jack Karch, a less than upright private detective whose methods of finding people and money are unsavory at best. At first we think Karch may be the likable but flawed Harry Bosch but quickly his character turns into the anti-Bosch, a dark and unlikable man with a sordid past. He quickly uncovers Cassie’s scheme and thus begins a cat and mouse chase that lasts the remainder of the book.

I enjoyed most of Void Moon, like other Connelly books it’s hard to put down, but I found the Jack Karch character really unappealing. I thought the spin on good vs. evil was a great idea, I only wish that Karch had had a few redeeming qualities, then the line between good and bad would have been very blurred and made the story even more compelling. Spoiler to follow…I also couldn’t understand why Cassie didn’t call the police near then end of the book to rescue the little girl. She behaved as if she was the girl’s only hope but certainly reporting Karch to the cops would have been a safer option all around, her decision to rescue the girl herself didn’t make complete sense. And for my last criticism, one of the familial relations that is revealed towards the end of the book is truly contrived and unnecessary, but since this book was written around the time of Angels Flight I’ll assume Connelly was going through a hackneyed phase in his otherwise flawless writing career.

I promise the next blog entry won’t take so long to write! Thank you for reading this!