Our Tip of the Ice Pick Award goes yet again to veteran crime novelist Michael Connelly for his 13th Harry Bosch novel, The Overlook. After an unsuccessful attempt at retirement, Harry came back to the LAPD as their cold case guru, a position that went, as we say in Canada, "all pear-shaped" in Connelly's 2006 thriller, Echo Park. Now Bosch is back in Homicide Special, an elite group of detectives who handle cases with overtones of celebrity or media attachment. He is summoned in the middle of the night to a remote overlook above the Mulholland Dam. A silver Porsche Carrera sits in a cul-de-sac surrounded by yellow police tape. Close by lies a dead man, shot execution-style, two bullets to the back of the head. Moments after arriving on the scene, Bosch is surprised by the intrusion of an FBI agent; there is no obvious reason why the feds should be in on this, especially this soon, and Bosch takes the immediate tack of aggressively defending his turf (longtime readers of crime novels will instantly recognize the ongoing enmity between local cops and the FBI). What they discover during the investigation is chilling: The dead man had access to the radioactive element Cesium, a medicinal isotope that also happens to be the substance that poisoned Chernobyl for the next several hundred years. On top of that, he had the most compelling reason in the world to secure an illegal supply of it.

To say more would be to give away vital plot points. Let me just say that this is perhaps the sparest, most riveting and most plot-driven Bosch novel to date. Adapted from a 16-part serial in the New York Times magazine, The Overlook has been considerably reworked for book publication—now richer and more complex, it is well worth reading even if you read it in the original form. Copyright 2007 BookPage Reviews.

Bestseller Connelly's dazzling 13th Harry Bosch novel (after 2006's Echo Park ) reunites Bosch with his former flame, FBI agent Rachel Walling. Bosch must break in a new partner, rookie Iggy Ferras, when they're called to look into the execution of physicist Stanley Kent on a Mulholland Drive overlook. When a special FBI unit, headed by Walling, arrives and tries to usurp his case, claiming it's a matter of national security, Bosch refuses to back down. Walling's focus on the potential theft of radioactive material from the hospital where Kent was lending his expertise to cancer treatment and her unwillingness to share information only make Bosch more determined to solve the case. This is a quick read, almost half the length of Connelly's previous novels, but he spares no punches when it comes to complexity and suspense. The scramble to investigate threats to national security, justified or otherwise, is a timely subject and one on which Connelly puts a brilliant new spin. (May 22)