Void Moon

Void Moon / Michael Connelly, 391 p.. read by L.J. Ganser

Cassie Black has success selling cars at an LA Porsche dealership, not a mean feat for someone who's just left prison in Nevada and is still on parole.  Why then does she leave her comfortable new life behind to return to the place where, 6 years earlier, Cassie lost her love and her freedom: the Cleopatra casino on the Vegas strip?  Can she survive one final job?

In order to enjoy a heist, the reader has to like the con and loathe the victim.  As always, Connelly understands good storytelling, so we root for Cassie all the way.   Chock full of action and surprises and, of course, supported with carefully researched technical detail, Connelly entertains with outlandish scenarios that just manage to be plausible. 

Void Moon

Void Moon by Michael Connelly, 391 pages

Cassie Black is 10 months into her parole when circumstances push her back into the burglary business. Her fixer Leo has a line on a high roller in Vegas who's on a winning streak, and with her skills at breaking into hotel rooms and safes, Cassie is the right woman for the job. Of course, things go sideways, getting Cassie in WAY deeper than she planned.

This was an enjoyable heist, with almost all of the hallmarks of the genre (yes for tech, bespoke tools, double-crossing partners, a criminal pulled in for "one last job," and unexpected problems during the heist; no for blueprints and crime slang). The tech-speak was WAY out of date, as Connelly spent a laughable amount of ink on explaining GPS technology, but he made up for it with a wonderfully wicked bad guy. I'm a sucker for a heist, and this one was well worth the time.

The Bible of Dirty Jokes

The Bible of Dirty Jokes by Eileen Pollack, 307 pages.

As we meet Ketzel Weinrach she is a recent initiate to widowhood. She grew up imitating the comedians who performed at her parent's Borscht Belt resort. She could do dead-on imitations of Henny Youngman, Zero Mostel, and all the greats of the 1950s and 60s. As an adult, when she decided to take to the stage these imitations didn't take her very far. Comedy was shifting and Ketzel was being left behind, but then Ketzel met Morty and things were good for a while.
Ketzel has always been a little bit our of sync with the world around her. Her parents and her brothers were always playing a little bit loose with the rules. Grampa was allegedly in the mob's pocket, Leo, the family retainer, had a bit of a gambling problem and maybe left a few bodies at the bottom of a local lake. Brother Ira died during the Six-Day-War, brother Howie became a religious zealot after a stint in prison, and brother Mike died in a helicopter crash after he quit working for the family business and went to work for Donald Trump.
Ketzel has been drawn back into her parents' world now that her last surviving brother, Potzie, has disappeared. As she attempts to track down Potzie and their slimey cousin Perry, Ketzel keeps uncovering family secrets. A good solid mystery.

The Narrows

The Narrows: a Harry Bosch Novel, read by Len Cariou, 404 p.

Harry Bosch: Michael Connelly and Harry Bosch don't need me to sing their praises, but I'll do it anyway.  When I first tried a Bosch novel a few years ago, I found Harry a bit too aggressive, brusque and humorless for my taste.  Now this LA detective, aggressive, brusque, humorless and fanatical in his pursuit of justice and eradication of evil, is just what I need.  His cases are complex but not far-fetched, and do a terrific job of highlighting corruption in the police, Los Angeles municipal government, the FBI, and, occasionally, the military.  Better still is Connelly's astute portrayal of the ways that pettiness, cowardice and overblown ambition - in the police and elsewhere - make things easier for the real bad guys to operate.  I love the sense of place here, a smoggy, grubby, but still glamorous Los Angeles, and Harry's complicated relationships with his daughter and co-workers.  Bibliotherapy for a bad-guy era.

The Narrows: Harry and FBI colleague Rachel Walling pursue serial killer The Poet into the Nevada desert and beyond.