The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

The Drop doesn’t stray from the widely-accepted formula of such novels. Harry Bosch is a detective who works in the Open-Unsolved Unit, returning to cold cases that were never figured out. He looks into new evidence with a fresh perspective hoping to avenge the death of victims whose killers were thought to have gone free. 

New DNA evidence from a 1989 murder case of a young woman ties Clayton Pell, a modern-day child molester who just got out of jail, to the killing. The only problem is that Pell was only eight at the time of the crime. While Detective Bosch has his hands full trying to track the real murderer, Irvin Irving, a city councilman, asks for Detective Bosch by name. Irving’s son, George, is believed to have jumped off a hotel balcony and Irving refuses to believe his son would commit suicide and wants Bosch to look into the matter.

Here’s the problem with The Drop; it doesn’t offer anything beyond the surface. The identities of the crime perpetrators are revealed early on in the novel and can be easily guessed from the start, while the rest of the novel merely attempts to prove that they were the ones who did it. Lacking the element of surprise, The Drop is a safe read. It’s not a novel you will take to bed every night; the kind of novel that takes two to three days to get through a single chapter. The two murders are completely unrelated and putting them together in the same plot feels forced.

And while The Drop lacks any shocking events, Michael Connelly has done a good job describing the gory details of the murders. Connelly successfully manages to provide insightful glimpses into the psyches of the depraved, and while such insights might not gain your sympathy, they help you understand the motives behind the actions.

The Drop is not a remarkable novel and is likely to be forgotten once finished, but Harry Bosch’s fans might not want to give it a miss.