I went into this book being unfamiliar with Connelley or his Harry Bosh books. All I knew of him was that he was a reporter who turned to detective fiction. Having said that, the book was well written, if a little stacatto at times. I would have preferred to hear more about the cops and less about the criminals and I felt that is the only place the book lacked balance. The opening section of the book led me to believe I was going to get great personal stories about cops. And I did, to some degree, but they comprised very little of the actual book. The rest was a catalogue of strange crimes and horrible criminals. I will be following this up soon with David Simon's Homicide.