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A review by meoreyn
The Last Coyote by Michael Connelly
3.0
I am surprised that this is one of the most highly rated books in the series, to be honest (by a small margin, but still). If anything, I think that this is my least favorite of the bunch, up until now. I obviously don't hate it and it was a fun and quick listen that did what it set out to do, but some of the themes I found repetitive and I think the character work is not his best. Mainly, I get tired of Harry always being in a situation at work at the beginning of every book. Be it the Dollmaker case that haunts him, then the IA people that haunt him, and then The Dollmaker again for the third book (I am not saying more because I know some people do not read these in order), we didn't need a suspension-for-mystery-reasons at the beginning to be interested in the story. All I am saying is that a detective novel, even in a series, can start on a regular Tuesday following a regular Monday and still be good.
Harry's relationship with women is still not good and while I know it is an unsaid rule of the genre that your main character has to be more or less subtly misogynistic, I will still comment on it. I hated how the Sylvia plotline was handled, especially after the end of the last book. I like doctor Hinojos, but she is clearly just a device, a place for Harry to be introspective and thoughtful without this sensitive side of him being in the way of his normal, every day, manly self. The reporter is okay I guess, rounding up the number of POC girlbosses to 2, which is more woke than I expected, but at the end of the day, she is still just a cog in the investigative machine of Harry Bosch. And Jazz is just this universe's version of a manic pixie dream girl, there just to fulfill the romance quota of the novel, and I can't wait to see how they make her disappear in the subsequent books. Also, this is a PSA for Harry: you are allowed to just have sex with a girl you just randomly met, not every romantic encounter you have has to be deep and/or described as making love.
The mystery part of the book was good. It's nice to have closure on a thing you heard about since book 1, the police work was okay and the twist at the end was well executed. I sure would like Harry to be nice to at least one person who is actively helping him, against the rules and their better judgment, but that would make him too much of a good guy, I guess? I am sure that there has to be at least one Venn diagram in this world where the gruff-loner-detective circle and the a-dick-to-everyone-not-a-mildly-attractive-female circle don't completely overlap, but that's not the case here. Also, I would like a present-day investigation, not a cold case, in the next (or I guess next-next, given that the next novel is not about Bosch) installment. Oh, and I am a sucker for metaphor, so I quite liked the parts about the coyote.
Overall, a low 3 stars, but I am not listening to this for its literary merits, so it's a 3 star nonetheless.
Harry's relationship with women is still not good and while I know it is an unsaid rule of the genre that your main character has to be more or less subtly misogynistic, I will still comment on it. I hated how the Sylvia plotline was handled, especially after the end of the last book. I like doctor Hinojos, but she is clearly just a device, a place for Harry to be introspective and thoughtful without this sensitive side of him being in the way of his normal, every day, manly self. The reporter is okay I guess, rounding up the number of POC girlbosses to 2, which is more woke than I expected, but at the end of the day, she is still just a cog in the investigative machine of Harry Bosch. And Jazz is just this universe's version of a manic pixie dream girl, there just to fulfill the romance quota of the novel, and I can't wait to see how they make her disappear in the subsequent books. Also, this is a PSA for Harry: you are allowed to just have sex with a girl you just randomly met, not every romantic encounter you have has to be deep and/or described as making love.
The mystery part of the book was good. It's nice to have closure on a thing you heard about since book 1, the police work was okay and the twist at the end was well executed. I sure would like Harry to be nice to at least one person who is actively helping him, against the rules and their better judgment, but that would make him too much of a good guy, I guess? I am sure that there has to be at least one Venn diagram in this world where the gruff-loner-detective circle and the a-dick-to-everyone-not-a-mildly-attractive-female circle don't completely overlap, but that's not the case here. Also, I would like a present-day investigation, not a cold case, in the next (or I guess next-next, given that the next novel is not about Bosch) installment. Oh, and I am a sucker for metaphor, so I quite liked the parts about the coyote.
Overall, a low 3 stars, but I am not listening to this for its literary merits, so it's a 3 star nonetheless.