Michael Connelly: Chasing the Dime

By MICHELE HEWITSON

Michael Connelly is the creator of the great Harry Bosch series: The Last Coyote, Trunk Music, Angels Flight. Great names; minor classics. Chasing the Dime is not a Bosch book. It is not great, either. But it is good, in a more obviously blockbusterish way.

Chasing the Dime - the cynic might conclude that the title reflects what the writer is hoping to do with this one - is a murder mystery crossed with the mysteries of modern science. The hero is a scientist, one Henry Pierce, who is in love to the exclusion of all else with molecular computing.

His lab life, what's left of his love life, and the big investor deal he and his team are chasing are all threatened when Pierce moves into a new apartment (his partner has kicked him out because he spent too much time with his molecules). With his new apartment, he gets a new phone number. Turns out it belonged to a call girl called Lilly, who has disappeared without trace. In Pierce's past is a sister who met the same fate. He goes searching for Lilly and, yep, ends up in a whole heap of trouble. As for Connelly, let's hope he gets his movie deal and goes back to Bosch.

Orion

$37.99