Published in 1992, The Black Echo is the audiobook that introduced L.A.P.D. homicide detective, Harry Bosch Audiobooks. The series, which runs twenty-four audiobooks thus far, has remained strong throughout and is, almost certainly, the gold standard of modern police procedurals.
All about The Black Echo Audiobook
The Black Echo Audiobook Free is the 1992 début audiobook by American crime author Michael Connelly. This is the first of Connelly’s Bosch Audiobooks series.
This story won the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for “Best First Novel” in 1992.
Audiobook Review
By: Michael Connelly
Series: Harry Bosch Audiobooks
Narrated by: Dick Hill
Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins
Genres: Contemporary Fiction, Modern Detective, Mystery/Thriller
Story
Black Echo is a very cool audiobook, first off, because it says something about the Vietnam War that I never knew before, and I love history. When true history is woven into a story it gains dimension, and we all learn something. When war is sewn into a story, it illustrates and makes real the suffering those who were int hose jungles experienced, teaching something we should all understand.
I wasn’t quite old enough to have experienced the Vietnam War, but my older sister was, and we used to watch the numbers come up in the morning newspaper, wondering which one of her friends would go next. I pressed my nose up against our Panasonic to watch the first horrible scenes ever shown live or nearly so on TV.
Connelly brings to life the Tunnel Rats – the soldiers that lived and died in the dark, their screams heard as a black echo, just going on and on. A lot of bad evil things happened there in the war and were carried back in men’s minds, as in the mind of Harry Bosch, the main character.
Here, Detective Bosch finds a murder victim in a Hollywood tunnel who turns out to be somebody he fought with as a boy in the tunnels of South Vietnam. The story unfolds the frightening, foreign, dark tunnels of his past with the darkness in his life; the historical darkness of the tunnels is an allegory to the state of people’s hearts, and of the places, the Vietnam Veterans ended up in America.
Narrator
Dick Hill is a favorite go-to narrator for me. He did a good job here, keeping all the male characters distinct. His female characters could use more femininity. I especially liked his ability to portray Harry’s emotions.
Plot Summary
For LAPD homicide cop Harry Bosch – hero, maverick, nighthawk – the body in the drainpipe at Mulholland Dam is more than another anonymous statistic. This one is personal.
The dead man, Billy Meadows, was a fellow Vietnam “tunnel rat” who fought side by side with him in a nightmare underground war that brought them to the depths of hell. Now, Bosch is about to relive the horror of Nam. From a dangerous maze of blind alleys to a daring criminal heist beneath the city to the tortuous link that must be uncovered, his survival instincts will once again be tested to their limit.
Joining with an enigmatic and seductive female FBI agent, pitted against enemies inside his own department, Bosch must make the agonizing choice between justice and vengeance, as he tracks down a killer whose true face will shock him.
Impressed? Ace detective Harry Bosch is also on the case in other exciting Michael Connelly crime-fiction novels.
Harry Bosch The Black Echo Audiobook Mp3 – End
