Plot-Driven Murder Mystery with an Unusual Premise

books:


	• Blood Work Michael Connelly Grand Central Publishing, 2002 - 480 pages average customer review:based on 187 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Ordinary

Blood Work is based on a captivating premise: a retired FBI ace is persuaded by a stranger to investigate the murder of her sister. The recipient of a heart transplant, Terry McCaleb accepts and soon discovers that the victim was the donor of his new heart and therefore his savior. A most promising framework on which to build a police procedural.

The McCaleb novels are a departure for author Connelly, who is well known for his sharp, edgy Harry Bosch novels. Unfortunately, this new hero cannot hold a candle to Harry with respect to charisma and simple humanity. For some reason, Connelly resorted to a series of facile discoveries and coincidences to bring this mystery to its conclusion. Some of these contrivances are just too much to swallow. It didn't take long, for example, for Terry to find the exact beach location where the perpetrator hides out, and this along the southern California coast, no less.

I'll probably read the next McCaleb novel, but with lower expectations that I hold for dear Harry.

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Mystery novel with an interesting twist

Connelly departs from his straightfoward mystery/suspense novels with this story that centers on a retired FBI agent searching for the killer of the donor of his new heart. Terry McCaleb is 8 weeks out from a heart transplant when he learns of the donor's murder. Her persuasive and attractive sister spurs McCaleb to jump start the cold case of the hunt for the killer. It takes some unforeseen turns as the former FBI investigator faces his own past and the dilemma of gaining a new chance on life from someone else's loss.

Connelly, as usual, pens a suspenseful page turner. The heart transplant issue causes some missteps I think because such a patient probably would not be able to do some of the things McCaleb does or suffers without more severe physical problems. That question is present throughout the action of the book and is a part of the conflict he faces. It also limits the usual tough-guy (Bosch type) of character in Connelly's books. Other than that issue, the book is first rate.

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Not Random

The hero in Michael Connelly's Blood Work is ex-FBI agent Terrell (Terry) McCaleb, who's recuperating from a heart transplant when Graciella Rivers steps onto his houseboat asking him to come out of retirement and find her sister's killer. Why should he? The answer is simple, Gloria River's was the heart donor who gave Terry his new heart. This leaves Terry no choice and he goes after the killer. It seems like a store robbery gone bad, but then Terry's FBI profiling instincts get ruffled and believes it was only supposed to look like a random act. He suspects there's a serial killer at work here, a predator.

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Plot-Driven Murder Mystery with an Unusual Premise

Are plots the center of murder mysteries? Or are the characters the center? I think that highly intelligent authors sometimes get carried away and try to do too much. That's the weakness of Blood Work. But if you don't mind a plot from Mars, you may find that the paths of Mars and Venus eventually intersect on Earth.

Blood Work is a novel filled with more imagination than I can ever hope to muster. As a result, the story becomes dizzying in its complications towards the end. What will hold your attention throughout is the riveting portrayal of retired FBI-profiler, Terry McCaleb, as he tries to track down the murderer of the woman whose heart saved McCaleb's life while recovering from the transplant surgery.

To me, the most interesting parts of the book relate to what it would be like to receive a heart transplant and to have a chance to do something for the donor's family by sorting out a murderer. That's about as interesting a premise as you can have. I'm sure you'll think about it often after you read the book.

On the other hand, I was less than thrilled by the shifts in pace within the book. It starts slow and gently . . . but is moving at breakneck pace near the end. The beginning is too slow, and the end is too fast. It's more contrast than most readers can easily absorb.

Michael Connelly also relies a bit too much on his ability to tie an infinite number of facts together into a plot. It's overkill. But I had to be impressed by the imagination that can do that.

If you haven't read other stories by Michael Connelly about Terry McCaleb, be sure you start with this one. It will enrich your appreciation of the later stories.

If you want to have some extra fun with the book, keep track of the different ways that the book's title fits into the story. You'll be amazed at how many different references are appropriate. I don't recall too many novels that use more than three such references. Connelly moves well beyond such a modest target.

Pay attention to the details. They matter!

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Michael Connelly has been attracting fans by the droves with his hard-boiled, edgy thrillers. A former crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times, Connelly combines a poet's ear for language with a deep understanding of the criminal mind to create dark, dramatic stories that raise the thriller genre to a new level. In Blood Work, Connelly introduces a new character, Terry McCaleb, who was a top man at the FBI until a heart ailment forced his early retirement. Now he lives a quiet life, nursing his new heart and restoring the boat on which he lives in Los Angeles Harbor. Although he isn't looking for any excitement, when Graciela Rivers asks him to investigate her sister Gloria's death, her story hooks him immediately: the new heart beating in McCaleb's chest is Gloria's. As McCaleb investigates the evidence in the case, the suspected randomness of the crime gives way to an unsettling suspicion of a twisted intelligence behind the murder. Soon McCaleb finds himself on the trail of a killer more horrifying than anything he ever encountered before.

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