Thursday, April 5, 2012

(868) The Closers by Michael Connelly

Connelly wrote quite a few in the Harry Bosch series. the Closers featured him rejoining the LAPD three years after retirement.

He was recalled to be a part of the open-unsolved murder cases. The first case he and his old partner Rider handled was a seventeen-year-old murder of a biracial girl, Rebecca. Like many innocent but romantic girls in high schools, Rebecca decided to have unprotected sex with her beloved. She was not any worse than dozens of girls who took their chances at having illicit fun. But I suppose the one mistake she made was to fall in love with someone not only much older than her, but she risked sexual relationship with her teacher. In his case, he could not risk his career by marrying her. He pressured her into having an abortion. That turned her against him. He became too emotionally unbalanced and ended up killing her.

Looking back, the girls that I know who were smart enough to take proper precautions and had multiple sex partners especially while overseas had came back and each had married well. A few could not conceive naturally but one who decided to seek fertility treatment early enough did have a biological child. Two who were caught with pregnancies before marriage in their home towns were forced into shot-gun marriages. I must say neither was particularly happy with their respective husbands. There were two who co-habit with their partners for years, neither is married today. Out of that, one is financially secured because her partnership with her partner in business and living arrangement brought her decent profit when she cashed out. The other one was left high and dry, existing from month to month. All these confirmed what my grandma said, a girl's reputation counted very much in the far east. It is not what you are that matters, it is what others (particularly prospective husbands and prospective in-laws) perceive you that count.

In the book, the murderer was caught. Then there was a twist, the suspect did not live to go to court, the victim's father found a way to kill him in a high security prison.

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