I have read the other Bosch books and this one is by far the worst with The Overlook coming in a close second.

McCaleb is unsympathetic and appears to base his original accusation of Bosch as a serial killer on shaky, to say the least, facts and suspicions.

The Bosch segments concentrate on a supremely boring court case and its proceedings. Like we couldn't all see that the killing was a setup by the defendant in that case.

But the most unbelievable was the suggestion that Bosch allowed the first guy to get killed, a. because he deserved it, and b. to catch the guy that was on trial. Both scenarios are out of character for Bosch who has always lived by the motto "they all matter or none of them matter."

I guess I'm giving it two stars instead of one for the reason that he at least kept Bosch and McCaleb active and united in the end to solve things. Not a really good reason I admit.

It appears that Connelly got an advance and had to write a book to justify it. So he churned out this sub par performance. Good thing I only paid $2.00 used.

Ok, I'm a huge Michael Connelly fan. Unfortuantely, I've read his books out of sequence; starting with the newer ones before making my way through the older ones. I thoroughly enjoy these novels and the characters Connelly weaves into each book. I haven't read Blood Work and therefore have no real background on Terry MaCaleb's character. However, it appears that he was a highly sought after and respected FBI profiler. Given this, it was very hard to understand how he named Harry as a suspect. He even had the advantage of having previous knowledge of Bosche from a previous case. It just wasn't plausible and didn't work for me.

I thoroughly enjoy every Michael Connelly book I read. His plots are always complex and satisfying, his characters always engaging. A DARKNESS MORE THAN NIGHT is no exception. It's like a Connelly reunion book. Terry McCaleb, Harry Bosch, Jack McEvoy (each the star of at least one previous Connelly title) along with lesser lights such as Jaye Winston, are all brought together here in a fascinating case.

Things get rolling when Winston asks McCaleb to help her profile the killer in a case she's working on. Though reluctant at first, McCaleb finds himself hooked once he gets involved. Bosch, meanwhile, is the main prosecution witness against a Hollywood sleaze-ball accused of murdering a young actress during a sexual encounter. The two parallel plots begin to mesh when McCaleb uncovers evidence that makes Bosch a suspect. If McCaleb's suspicions become public, Bosch's effectiveness as a witness will be decisively compromised.

A DARKNESS MORE THAN NIGHT is another great read from Michael Connelly. I enjoyed it from start to finish and I think most other readers will, too. If you are a fan of Connelly, or just like reading a good police procedural, this should be right up your alley.

I thoroughly enjoy every Michael Connelly book I read. His plots are always complex and satisfying, his characters always engaging. A DARKNESS MORE THAN NIGHT is no exception. It's like a Connelly reunion book. Terry McCaleb, Harry Bosch, Jack McEvoy (each the star of at least one previous Connelly title) along with lesser lights such as Jaye Winston, are all brought together here in a fascinating case.

Things get rolling when Winston asks McCaleb to help her profile the killer in a case she's working on. Though reluctant at first, McCaleb finds himself hooked once he gets involved. Bosch, meanwhile, is the main prosecution witness against a Hollywood sleaze-ball accused of murdering a young actress during a sexual encounter. The two parallel plots begin to mesh when McCaleb uncovers evidence that makes Bosch a suspect. If McCaleb's suspicions become public, Bosch's effectiveness as a witness will be decisively compromised.

A DARKNESS MORE THAN NIGHT is another great read from Michael Connelly. I enjoyed it from start to finish and I think most other readers will, too. If you are a fan of Connelly, or just like reading a good police procedural, this should be right up your alley.

This book arrived on time but was almost unable to be opened because of water damage.

I just discovered Michael Connelly and while I have really enjoyed his other books this is my least favorite so far. Parts of it are incredibly entertaining and it is interesting to view Bosch through the eyes of another character (McCaleb) and the idea of weaving together two murder cases is good, but, for me, the story gets a bogged down by both the solving of the two cases and the courtroom scenes. Reading so-called "courtroom drama" for me is incredibly boring. Apart from some clever word-play and maybe a "gotcha" moment, it's mostly just hot air...no action, no enjoyable writing, very little character development. Still, this doesn't deter me from wanting to read all of Connelly's books b/c those moments with the dark-hearted Bosch are worth it.

Modern noir doesn't get any better than A Darkness More Than Night, as Michael Connelly delicately creates a full literary development of personality of his avenging detective character, Harry Bosch, while accurately portraying ordinary peace officers as the frail humans that they really are. Those who realize that FBI profiling of serial killers is more pseudo-science than science will be amused by Terry McCaleb's misreading of the clues he's given to inspect.

Those who like a novel's progress to be very opaque won't like this book. You'll see where it's headed pretty early on. The pleasure in this plot is to see if the good guys can outmaneuver some very obnoxious bad guys.

I was impressed the way the plot's design cross-cut between police investigations and a trial. I did find that Mr. Connelly's portrayal of what prosecutors do to be more than a little stilted. Janis Langwiser, co-prosecutor, is more incompetent than any first year law student I can imagine.

Those who are familiar with Mr. Connelly's earlier works will be impressed by how smoothly he combines characters and references from several books. Robert Parker could take a lesson from Mr. Connelly in this area. If you don't know the earlier books, you'll still have a fine time with the story . . . the references are well explained before the book's end.

If you like this book, you'll want to be sure to read The Narrows (Harry Bosch).

(review is of the 2001 Warner Books edition)
We re-visit a lot of old friends in this interesting mystery, full of twists and turns. Terry McCaleb (last seen in Blood Work), who is a retired FBI profiler, is contacted by Jay Winston for help on a case. She wants him to do a profile for her. At first he refuses, but he finally relents and agrees to do the profile. However, he ends up being pulled into the case and discovers that there appears to be a link between the murder Winston is investigating (the murder is of Edward Gunn, previously investigated by Bosch in an earlier book - unfortunately I can't remember which book at this time) and a Netherlandish artist ... named Hieronymus Bosch.

At the same time, Bosch is helping prosecute a trial against a rich Hollywood bloodsucker named David Storey, who is under arrest for strangling at least one woman to death. When it is anonymously leaked to investigative reporter Jack McEvoy (last seen in The Poet) that Bosch is possibly under investigation in the murder of Gunn, Bosch is furious - first that he would be suspected at all, and secondly because if it were to get out it would destroy his credence in court and allow Storey to go free.

The two intertwining yet apparently separate plot-lines turn and twist around each other until finally they reach a conclusion that is, to put it mildly, quite explosive.

Great book, great story! Don't miss it!

What's interesting about the Bosch novels is that every one has a slightly different twist. The twist in Darkness is the grudging collaboration between two old pros, Bosch and McCaleb. Neither one is a sweetheart - you don't want to cross these guys, and even when they are forced to cooperate, they can't quite become friends. McCaleb strongly suspects that Bosch has slipped over the edge, morphing from avenging detective to vengeful murderer. Bosch is stunned and insulted, and, when he discovers that he's been diabolically set up, incredulous. The two plots - the nasty murder of a lowlife and the sexual murder of a beautiful actress - work together well to make this an exciting episode in the dark and gritty life of Harry Bosch.

Connelly covers everything in exhaustive detail, from the process by which Terry (the initially reluctant investigator) profiles the killer---and Bosch, his unlikely suspect---to each moment of the courtroom testimony in Bosch's high-profile case. It rides a fine line between fascinating and dry, illustrative and dull, and I think which side of the line it falls on depends very much on the individual reader. It certainly gave the story a great deal of authenticity, and for people who particularly enjoy following each and every detail of investigation and trial it's ideal. For me, however, the courtroom material in particular stepped over the line into overly-dry, using short, staccato sentences that evoked a court transcript more than anything. I imagine for some people that's a plus, but for me it was a minus.

Connelly also has a tendency to go off on extended tangents about one or another past event. While he does tie them all together in the end and they do all become relevant, it does give the book a rather slow, meandering feel at times. Again, something that some will enjoy while others won't.

This book is obviously very carefully constructed, and I fully believe that each of the things I wasn't entirely thrilled with were done very deliberately and will appeal to some segments of Connelly's audience; I mention them primarily so that you can choose for yourselves whether they're characteristics you'd be likely to enjoy or not. The plot itself is extremely well-constructed and interesting, with several interesting red herrings of various types and quite a few well-detailed characters that I certainly enjoyed spending the length of a book with.

If you enjoy highly-detailed mysteries and procedurals with plenty of detective-work and courtroom drama, then A Darkness More Than Night makes quite a good read.

I've read most of Michael Connelly's work and found this one on par with all the other excellent reads. There were the usual plot flaws that reviewers and I agree on (why wasn't it obvious to McCaleb that Harry was being set-up?) BUT, once again Connelly's great writing helped me easily downplay stuff like that.

Being a fan of the Bosch series, it was cool to see Bosch being observed, scrutinized and analyzed by the main protagonist ex-FBI agent Terry McCaleb (he from a previous Connelly book "Blood Work"). Easy 4 stars.

I've read most of Connelly's work and found this one on par with all the other excellent reads. There were the usual plot flaws that reviewers and I agree on (why wasn't it obvious to McCaleb that Harry was being set-up?) BUT, once again the excellent storytelling Connelly posesses helped me easily downplay stuff like that.

Being a fan of the Bosch series, it was cool to see Bosch being observed and analyzed by someone else (Terry McCaleb) Easy 4 stars.

I have not listened to the book yet. It was sent in a timely manner.

This was the first book by M. Connelly that I picked and I have to say that if the author is indeed as good as they say then I probably should have chosen his other title.

I gave two stars because I think the author writes a good prose. The book is readable.

As far as plot is concerned, it is simple but weak. It is hard to show what I mean without giving away a story. But frankly, if someone told me in advance what to expect, I would have only said 'thank you' and picked something else to read.

Some folks refer to twists and turns in the plot and I have no idea what they are talking about. What twists and turns???

Warning... what follows may be a spoiler.........

We have this super ex-criminal profiler, who apparently lives and breathes only when he works. He's been doing this for a loooooong time. So he is an expert in profiling a criminal. He studied the crime scene, made couple inquiries and wholaaa.... he's got a suspect. The crime scene construction was suppose to lead to the name of the "killer." Which it did. But even I, who understands nothing about the profiling, know that there is not one killer on earth who would committ a crime and provide clues to investigators that spell out their name (THEIR FULL NAME!!!). Oh, but our 'expert' thought that this was ok. And you don't have to be too smart to guess that he was, of course, wrong. I knew it from the moment he named a suspect, but our expert did not realize it until way later into the book.

This plotting is what killed the book for me. Very sloppy and I cannot believe M. Connelly sold it to publishers. No first timer would get anywhere with this kind of plot.

Something else stood out..... According to M. Connelly cell phones only chirp. In this novel they did every other page (ok, almost every other page). If you decide to read this book you'll know what I am talking about.

I don't recall ever hearing about Michael Connelly until spotting a couple of his books in a pile of giveaways. Most online reviews gave him high marks, so I took the thinner of the two first.

Connelly moves the story right along, with a fast pace and not a lot of distractions or parallel threads unrelated to the major plot. The writing is crisp and not especially complex, and the characters are fairly sharply defined, even for a reader who had no familiarity with any of the other books. Both Bosch and McCaleb have enough flaws to be reasonably interesting, and I liked their little meeting at the end.

I assume that Connelly doesn't make a habit of hooking the story to the painter of the same name in other books, as presumably he can't use that more than once. I waffled on that as a plot device, in that it would seem to be way too much of a clue or too far-fetched for a real scenario. McCaleb fell for the idea too quickly, in my opinion. At least the paintings were suitably dark, as opposed to having some character named Grant Wood kill people with a pitchfork.

The reader will grasp immediately that the murders will be related and not just two independent stories to be solved ala CSI. I had a pretty good idea of the basic outcome well before the end. Even so, there was enough doubt in my mind and suspense to keep my engagement.

For this new reader, the inclusion of characters from other books was OK, as it feeds the regular fans or people reading the books in rough order. They neither added a lot nor caused too much distraction. As an example, Jack McEvoy could probably have been replaced just as easily by a new character, but no big deal.

I have read several of Connelly novels starting with the Closers and reading most of them back to the Poet. I have held the Poet as being Connelly's poorest example of prose until I read A Darkness More Than Night. As a college educated individual I found that it took too far fetched that a FBI profiler would base his entire profile off of two individuals having the same name. As a literature student I found each scene/chapter of the book to be a repeat of the one before it or one found in another book. Also Connelly puts so much weight on Bosch's character and then undermines his position, which destroys the book. He also portrays Kiz Rider as having a disease rather than being lesbian, why should she be afraid to say that she is gay? Why should a writer use a character's sexuality as an element of mystery? As a law student I found every court scene to be more like any ABC/CBS drama than reality. Some have said that this is a good read because Connelly "weaves" other characters from his books into this one, but like a "greatest hits" album the actual album is always stronger than the compilation. The Narrows, Lost Light and The Closers are much stronger books and more worth your time.

I've read almost all of Michael Connelly's work and I consider A DARKNESS MORE THAN NIGHT to be the weakest of the bunch so far. Don't get me wrong -- Connelly is a terrific writer, and this book is certainly an above-average crime novel. But it falls way short of the greatness of your typical Connelly book.

This novel had a lot of problems. The plot of A DARKNESS MORE THAN NIGHT is largely implausable, and worst of all, not very thrilling. The villains in this book are so arrogant and nasty that I found them cartoonish. This is also the only Connelly novel where I found the plot predictable -- I predicted most of the twists before they occurred. In short, I was disappointed. Only Connelly's fine writing and good pacing saved this book in the end for me.

Lastly, don't make A DARKNESS MORE THAN NIGHT your first Connelly book! This novel liberally uses characters and situations from prior Connelly books -- THE LAST COYOTE, THE POET, and BLOOD WORK. Reading this novel, in my opinion, will spoil these earlier novels, which in my opinion are far superior to this subpar effort.