Blood Work by Michael Connelly is a thriller with a great hook. Solve the murder of the person who gave you the organs to survive. The novel hooked me right away. The pace of Blood Work was slower than I expected the twists are really slight until the end where there is a big one. The climax was okay I liked how personal it got at the end. Terry McCaleb was a different character than Harry Bosch but had too many of the same qualities like knowing hypnosis and breaking the rules for justice. This novel did have a lot of repetition in it. We see two murders on tape about 20 times it’s cool when there’s new information which changes the scene, but sometimes nothing is different and the scene is just getting described again by someone else. Blood Work was turned into a movie starring Clint Eastwood and Jeff Daniels in 2002 which has the same set up but a different ending and bad guy. This is book 8 in the Harry Bosch Universe and book one of Terry McCaleb. The Lincoln Lawyer is brought up and Harry Bosch’s father as well and in the last Harry Bosch novel Angels Flight, Terry McCaleb’s name was brought up by Bosch. Blood Work was published on March 2 1998.
Plot Summary: Terry McCaleb is enjoying retirement from the FBI, he took an early retirement due to a heart condition and a recent transplant. He meets Graciella a woman that has just read of exploits and wants to hire him, he politely declines but her insistence and saying he’s the only one who can solve it, he ask why? And she tells him he has her sister’s heart and she was murdered please solve it. Terry takes the case but he soon finds out that this seeming random robbery kill was the work of a twisted serial killer.
What I Liked: The hook for the mystery was so good I was hooked right away. I liked how personal the case got and the reason behind the murders. The clues are little stuff that adds up to a big reveal. I liked how Connelly keeps surprising me with clues and direction of his stories. I really liked the hypnosis scene even though it went a little too long.
What I Disliked: I Disliked how Terry treated Buddy he was just helping him and he got treated like crap. Thank goodness this book has such a great hook because it slows down a lot after the opening. I felt like the harmonicas were some clue since everybody interacts with them but it went nowhere. I hate that we never got the significance of the code numbers.
Recommendation: Blood Work is a good but not great mystery with an incredible hook. It sits at a 4.13 on Goodreads which is solid. I did not like this one as much as previous Harry Bosch mysteries. I have seen the Clint Eastwood movie and have a little more appreciation with the changes they made to put up the action and the drama. I rated Blood Work by Michael Connelly 3 out of 5 stars.Harry Bosch Universe Book reading book order so far 1) the Black Echo, 2) The Black Ice, 3) The Concrete Blonde, 4) The Last Coyote, 5) The Poet, 6) Trunk Music, 7) Angels Flight, and 8) Blood Work. The order in which I rank them from best to worst is 1) The Poet, 2) Angels Flight, 3) Concrete Blonde, 4) The Black Ice, 5) Trunk Music 6)The Last Coyote, 7) Blood Work, and 8) The Black Echo.
Reading with My Eyes 