This post is a sort of sequel to the previous one … all
right and without beating about the bush, which I usually don’t to, I’ll come
straight to the point … the four ‘fascinating’ short story anthologies that I
stumbled upon while looking frantically for more Bosch stories are –
In the Company of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the
Holmes Canon
(Eds. Laurie R. King & Leslie S, Klinger) is where Connelly’s short story
featuring Bosch, The Crooked Man, appears … there are obvious similarities here
with the Holmes story of the same name … husband getting murdered and the wife
being in the same room, being the most straight one … let me leave it at that
and just say that for once Bosch appears baffled at the crime scene and is
Watsonned …
In Sunlight or in Shadow: Stories inspired by the paintings of Edward
Hopper (Ed.
Lawrence Block) … when I realized what this anthology was, I was happily
surprised … a book full of stories inspired by the paintings of an
artist!! And you have some top names
here: Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Justin Scott, Lee Child … Connelly, of
course … and here Bosch appears in the story, Nighthawks, inspired by
Hopper’s painting of the same name …
Those who have read the Bosch series would recall Bosch at the end of The Black Echo staring at a print of
Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks … “A quiet, shadowy man
sits alone at the counter of a street-front diner. He looks across at another
customer much like himself, but only the second man is with a woman. Somehow,
Bosch identified with it, with that first man. I am the loner, he thought. I am
the nighthawk. The print, with its stark dark hues and shadows, did not fit in
this apartment, Bosch realized. Its darkness clashed with the pastels. Why did
Eleanor have it? What did she see there?” The painting also appears in Trunk
Music …
In this story, Bosch is shadowing a girl who sits in front of the
original painting in Chicago and is writing … he too enters the hall where the
painting is hung … tries to be inconspicuous … he looks at the painting …
wonders … and suddenly she speaks … they talk about the painting … and then the
story moves …
Face-Off (Ed. David Baldacci) … this anthology is described as … “For the first time ever the world’s
greatest thriller characters meet head to head in eleven electrifying stories”
… and here Harry Bosch is in a story called Red Eye alongside Patrick
Kenzie, a character created by Dennis Lehane … this anthology is a thriller
reader’s dream come true … take two famous mavericks and put them together and
see what happens … that means both writers would have had to do a lot of
weaving in and ducking out to make their heroes gel well …
I haven’t read any
Patrick Kenzie novels and I was not so familiar with the character … but Harry
I knew, and enjoyed his encounter and banter with Patrick Kenzie … here too
there are heavyweights … Rankin is here, and so is Lee Child … Peter James, R L
Stine, John Lescroat, Heather Graham, Paul Wilson …
And the fourth anthology is called The Highway Kind: Tales of Fast Cars, Desperate
Drives and Dark Roads … where Mickey
Haller, the lawyer character (and Bosch’s half-brother) appears in a story
named Burnt Matches … I am not too familiar with Mickey Haller … he
appears in a couple of later Bosch novels, and he has a series of his own … I
liked the idea of putting together stories about driving on endless and lonely
highways, about American car culture, about American crime fiction and its
connection with cars … “Follow a lowered 60s Impala, a Honda minivan, or a new
Mercedes S-Class sedan, and you’ll likely end up in three very different places
listening to three very different stories,” says Patrick Mullikin, the editor
of this volume.
I would love to buy the first three anthologies …
I already have Face Off in my shopping cart … In the Company of Sherlock Holmes
is available for very less, but the delivery charges are double the price of
the book … I’ll wait for some time and see … In Sunlight or in Shadow
is available, but very expensive for me now … but this one I want to have … I
also want to see if there are any other books like this where paintings have inspired
stories …
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