I started listening to Michael Connelly audiobooks a couple years ago, and have slowly grown to appreciate them for what they are: simple, straightforward crime novels that have some entertainment value. As long as I don’t expect great literature, a bunch of well-developed characters, or a tightly plotted story, I’m usually ok with the experience. But Connelly’s 2004 book The Narrows failed to reach even those low expectations, and was easily the worst of the Harry Bosch series thus far.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): The Narrows brings together characters and plots from two of Connelly’s previous books. First, several years ago, FBI agent-turned-serial-killer Bob Backus, nicknamed The Poet, was hit in a shootout with other field agents as he was about to turn an LAPD officer into another one of his victims. The FBI, looking to put a positive spin on the story, claimed that The Poet was almost certainly dead, and pointed to a body found in the area Backus was headed as proof of that claim. But the crime lab was unable to make a positive ID, causing some in the Bureau to believe that he managed to escape.

The second plot deals with Terry McCaleb, a former FBI agent who retired after receiving a heart transplant and ran a fishing charter until his death from complications related to his surgery. McCaleb’s wife Graciela had reason to believe there may have been foul play involved, so she contacts retired LAPD detective Harry Bosch, now a private investigator, to look into McCaleb’s death for her. Bosch agrees, though he doesn’t really think there would have been any reason for anyone to murder Terry.

As the novel unfolds, these two investigations eventually merge, bringing Bosch together with FBI agent Rachel Walling to collaborate and take Backus down. After hitting a few dead ends and overcoming some obstacles, Bosch and Walling eventually do get their man, bringing The Poet’s crime spree to an end once and for all.

My Reaction: I didn’t like The Narrows at all, and I think the reason was the way Connelly chose to narrate the story. The book continually shifts between a first-person “I” perspective whenever Harry Bosch is front and center, but then changes to third-person limited when Rachel Walling is in the foreground. This was distracting and exasperating, and made it very difficult for me to get through the book.

Another reason I didn’t like the book is that these characters just aren’t as interesting as Connelly seems to think they are. I mean, sure, Bosch is ok, so I didn’t have a problem with him appearing here. But Backus, Walling, Graciela, and the other minor FBI agents aren’t that great — and certainly aren’t worth bringing back again and again. I wish Connelly would take the time to invent quality characters instead of going the easy route with these rehashes. Ugh.

The story was ridiculously complicated, which made it unbelievable. I had no idea why Backus needed to execute this master plan after successfully evading capture for so long. I’m no profiler, but I would have thought it would be enough for him to just kill the bookstore owner without the elaborate setup. He surely would have gotten away with it then.

Overall, The Narrows was a disappointment. As I said before, I’m not expecting heady literature when I read Michael Connelly, but this wasn’t even a good story. I suggest skipping this title, as it’s definitely not representative of the rest of the Harry Bosch series.

I’d never heard of Jodi Picoult before, but I decided to pick up her novel Nineteen Minutes after seeing it on Amazon.com’s Editor’s Picks of 2007 list. The subject matter seemed interesting, and with an average star rating of 4.5 after 448 customer reviews on the site, I figured this would be a pretty safe choice in terms of an interesting read.

What I soon discovered, however, is that Picoult is extremely long-winded, and that her writing is quite uneven. The novel was interesting at times, but positively dragged at others, making for a tiresome reading experience overall.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): The quiet, peaceful town of Sterling New Hampshire is jolted awake one spring day when 17-year-old Peter Houghton goes on a Columbine-style shooting spree at the local high school. His rampage lasts 19 very long minutes, and leaves 10 dead and 18 wounded. Houghton is arrested at the scene by sheriff Patrick Ducharme.

While Peter sits in jail awaiting first his arraignment and then trial, the novel explores both the aftermath of his crime and the events leading up to that fateful day. So part of the action is told in flashbacks dating all the way back to before Peter was even born, when his mother Lacy, a midwife, befriended single mother-to-be Alex Cormier. That friendship would in turn lead to Peter and Alex’s daughter Josie being friends during early childhood, though the two would eventually drift apart as Josie became one of the cool kids while Peter remained an outcast. And part of the action covers present-day actions as Alex tries to figure out a way to help Josie deal with the trauma of losing her boyfriend in the shooting and Lacy tries to figure out where she went wrong with Peter.

By the time the novel reaches its conclusion, the reader has a far better — though not perfect — understanding of what Peter’s state of mind was at the time of the shooting and why he chose to express his rage in that manner.

My Reaction: Nineteen Minutes was a very frustrating book in many ways. First of all, as I said above, the novel was just far too long and could have really benefited from some heavy editing. There were many parts that I simply skimmed, including everything about Lewis Houghton and his happiness theories, as well as the relationship stuff between Alex and Patrick. These subplots added nothing at all to the main story, and thus felt completely out of place. Why even include this kind of filler? Peter, Josie, and Lacy were the most interesting characters and had the most interesting problems, so Picoult could very easily have made a compelling novel about these three alone.

The biggest obstacle to my enjoyment of the book, however, was Picoult’s portrayal of Peter’s bullying at the hands of the cool kids. Would fifth graders repeatedly pick on kindergarten kids to the extent of destroying three lunch boxes? I mean, we’re talking about 11-year-olds going after five-year-olds here. That does NOT happen. And as soon as property is destroyed (especially when it happens over and over again), parents and teachers do get involved.

The high school bullying was only slightly more believable. Yes, I’ve seen bigger guys shoving smaller kids into lockers or pushing them around or whatever, but again, does it happen every single day? The verbal assaults, calling Peter faggot and homo, were spot-on, and those would definitely happen on a daily basis. But the physical stuff and the blatant destruction of personal property (Peter having his glasses deliberately smashed) would not fly for very long — not in a middle-class school district like the one portrayed in this novel.

I thought the Josie “twist” was utterly ridiculous. She was having issues with her physically and verbally abusive boyfriend, but instead of breaking up with him she decided that shooting him would be a better answer? Um, okay… that’s a little extreme there, isn’t it? I at least understood how someone like Peter would reach his boiling point after all those years of bullying, but Josie had tons of other options.

And finally, the ending left a lot to be desired. Calling Matt Royston and Courtney Ignatio’s killings manslaughter was an absolute joke. I mean, what did Courtney even do to Peter besides pass that one e-mail on to Drew, who then spammed the entire student body? Are there people out there who really believe that a simple action like that would reduce her cold-blooded murder to a manslaughter charge?? Wow.

On the whole, Nineteen Minutes was very difficult to get through. There were too many boring parts, it was far longer than it needed to be, and most of the plot points were simply too unrealistic, even for fiction. I don’t understand all the praise this book has received, nor do I get why it’s on Amazon’s Editor’s Picks list. It’s not at all worth the time!