Michael Connelly's The Echo Park

Michael Connelly’s The Echo Park is the twelfth book in the police procedural series featuring Los Angeles detective ‘Hieronymus’ Harry Bosch. Police procedurals, as the name suggests, highlight the workings of the methodology in the police department and positions the investigator as an official functioning within the procedures of this system. Although the position of an official within the Police Establishment privileges the investigator, it also acts as a constraint. In police procedurals, the institution acts as an authoritative figure that restricts, and it emphasizes the conflict within the self, where the police official, who functions as the detective, is in conflict with the individual sense of justice as opposed to the justice of

It revolves around the investigation concerning the disappearance and murder of Marie Gesto. Thirteen years after Gesto’s disappearance, Raynard Waits, a serial killer, proposes to confess his guilt with regard to her murder. Nonetheless, it leads to the further suspicion on the part of the investigator concerning the evidence provided to validate the accounts of the case. Harry Bosch is one year into his return to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) after his retirement. He is working in the Open Unsolved-Unit (OPU). Harry Bosch along with his partner Kiz Rider tries to elucidate the truth about Gesto’s murder. However, Bosch realizes that the case has become a subject of play in the hands of the politically and financially influential. Apart from exploring the investigator’s real-time tedious experience, The Echo Park also includes the heightened modernist concerns of crime and

In addition, the state system acts as an invasive authoritarian. These aspects highlight the predominant negatives in the system. Although the investigator works within the system, the individual tries to maintain a kind of autonomy. The above-mentioned becomes the prime focus in The Echo Park. Harry Bosch finds himself in the mayhem of corruption. It depicts the self that is in conflict with the system. As the plot moves on, the focus shifts from the crime and the criminal to the investigator, Harry Bosch. The entire episode dealing with the investigation and the encounter with the serial killer Raynard Waits is a deception to lead Bosch away from the Garlands, who are the actual perpetrators. Although Bosch suspects such misconception from the beginning, he does not have evidence enough to prove the case against Anthony Garland. He suspects Rick O. Shea, who has viable political reasons enough to manipulate the case for his own financial benefits. However, Adam Pratt, the senior official at OPU and Maury Swan, the public prosecutor are the conspirators. At an acute point of frustration, when he is questioned unreasonably for not following ‘orders’ during his rescue mission of the girl caught by the serial killer, he says, “You are going to let the guy skate because you think he could be a friend to the department?” (Connelly 405).