The Black Echo
Detective Harry Bosch of the Los Angeles Police Department's Hollywood division is a Vietnam tunnel rat who came home, joined the force, and made enough noise in Internal Affairs that he has been exiled from the elite homicide squads. When a body is found stuffed into a storm drainpipe off Mulholland and the victim turns out to be Billy Meadows, a fellow tunnel rat Bosch served with in Vietnam, the department calls it an overdose and tries to close it. Bosch does not, and his refusal draws in a federal bank-robbery task force, a sharp FBI agent named Eleanor Wish, and a buried wartime betrayal that comes back up the pipes with the body. Michael Connelly's 1992 debut launched the Harry Bosch series and won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel, establishing the moral architecture of a detective who will not let a case die.
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What you might want to know about The Black Echo
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
First Harry Bosch novel. LAPD homicide detective and former Vietnam tunnel rat Harry Bosch catches a case in which the body in a Mulholland drainage pipe is a man Bosch served with in the tunnels twenty years ago.
Yes. The Black Echo (1992) is the first novel in Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch series. The series has continued for more than 25 books, plus connected series featuring The Lincoln Lawyer and Renee Ballard.
Yes, indirectly. Amazon's Bosch series (2014 to 2021) and Bosch: Legacy adapt many Harry Bosch novels, including elements of The Black Echo. Titus Welliver stars as Bosch.
The Black Echo was written by Michael Connelly, published in 1992 by Grand Central Publishing.
The Black Echo is 457 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Black Echo takes most readers 7 to 10 hours to finish.
The Black Echo is a standalone novel by Michael Connelly, not part of a series.
The Black Echo is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
