Line #84 Literature/ADarknessMoreThanNight


1	[[quoteright:346:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/darkness_more_than_night.png]]
2	''A Darkness More Than Night'' is a 2001 detective novel by Creator/MichaelConnelly.
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4	The two protagonists are LAPD Detective Literature/HarryBosch, Connelly's most frequent main character, and Terry [=McCaleb=], protagonist of previous Connelly novel ''Literature/BloodWork''. The novel starts three years after the events of ''Blood Work''. [=McCaleb=] is now married and the father of a little girl, with a prosperous charter fishing business on Catalina Island, but he is dissatisfied and yearns to get back into the crime-fighting business. Conveniently, he is asked to lend his expertise to an unsolved murder case. A dirtbag named Edward Gunn is found to have been murdered in a highly ritualistic manner. [=McCaleb=] winds up zeroing in as his main suspect on a homicide cop who was frustrated in his attempts to nail Gunn for murder years ago--none other than Detective Harry Bosch.
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6	Bosch, meahwhile, is the lead detective in a high-profile murder trial involving Hollywood film director David Storey, who is accused of murdering a young actress. When he finds out about Terry [=McCaleb=]'s investigation, he soon sniffs out that he is the target of a frame job meant to benefit Storey.
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8	This novel supplied the main plotline for the third season of Harry Bosch TV series ''Series/{{Bosch}}''.
9
10	!!Tropes present in this work:
11	* ArcWords: It is with this novel that "man on a mission" truly coalesces as Connelly's express characterization of Bosch, though he has made reference to it in past works. Since his normally minimalist narrative style wouldn't really suit such a relatively colorful description in most Bosch novels, here we get it as part of the notes profiler Terry [=McCaleb=] took when he first worked with Bosch years ago.
12	* AssholeVictim: Bosch tells [=McCaleb=] about [[Literature/TheLastCoyote Harvey Pounds' murder]], calling him a "pure-bred asshole" but acknowledging that Bosch's own actions [[ItsAllMyFault got Pounds killed]].
13	* AsYouKnow: Winston explains to Rudy Tafero, a former cop, why he's being charged with murder in his brother's death.
14	--> ''I know you know the law, but I am compelled to explain the last charge. Your brother's death occurred during the commission of a felony. Therefore, under California law you, as his co-conspirator, are held responsible for his death.''
15	* AwesomeByAnalysis: The ''instant'' Harry hears that Jaye Winston is asking questions about him, he knows that she and [=McCaleb=] are [[ProperlyParanoid investigating him for Gunn's murder]]. Not wonders. Not suspects. ''Knows''. Total facts available at that moment: Jaye asked Kiz about him, [=McCaleb=] visited him.
16	* BackStory: In order to establish some camaraderie between Bosch and [=McCaleb=], we're told that they had previously worked together on a murder case. Connelly later tells this story in full in the short story "Cielo Azul." Avoids being CanonWelding because the two characters were always part of the same 'verse.
17	* BadassInDistress: [=McCaleb=], immediately followed by Bosch, at the climax.
18	* BigDamnHeroes: Bosch, immediately followed by [=McCaleb=], at the climax.
19	* ByTheBookCop: Terry [=McCaleb=], full stop. By chapter four, it's already been established pointedly that he never exceeds the safety limit for number of people on his boat, drives along the lanes of an empty marina instead of crossing through the vacant slips, and he passes up a beer to drink water, implicitly because he's back on the job now (he had had wine with dinner before getting started). Is it any wonder he finds it so easy to believe CowboyCop Harry Bosch is a [[KillerCop killer]]?
20	* ChasteHero: Bosch tells Kiz he's not interested in meeting someone new because he's leaving the door open for DivorceIsTemporary. Moot because the "someone new" in question is Jaye Winston, who's actually just investigating Bosch. As soon as he hears who it is, he [[AwesomeByAnalysis puts two and two together]].
21	* ContinuityNod:
22	** Yet another reference to fictional film company Archway Studios, which has popped up in multiple Connelly novels dating back to ''Literature/TrunkMusic''.
23	** Bosch's former FriendsWithBenefits sex partner Teresa Corazon is still slicing up bodies at the coroner's office.
24	** [=McCaleb=] is still driving his Jeep Cherokee.
25	** Buddy Lockridge still reads murder mysteries.
26	** Seems like we haven't heard about Bosch's handcuffs tie tack since ''Literature/TheBlackEcho''.
27	** Bosch admits to having trouble quitting smoking, which he was initially fairly successful at in ''Literature/AngelsFlight'' until his CigaretteOfAnxiety.
28	** Janis Langwiser returns from ''Angels Flight'', with a mention of how Bosch's interaction with her on that case led to his recommendation of her to be second chair on the current case.
29	** [=McCaleb=] visits Bosch's house and comments that it's changed, then asks if it was destroyed in "the quake." Bosch explains briefly about [[Literature/TheLastCoyote it being red-tagged and having to be re-built]].
30	** Bosch confesses to [=McCaleb=] that [[Literature/TheLastCoyote Harvey Pounds was killed because of an off-the-books investigation he was involved in]].
31	** To dig Bosch further into the hole of suspicion, Winston and [=McCaleb=] uncover everything that came out about Bosch's mother in [[Literature/TheConcreteBlonde the Dollmaker civil suit]].
32	* ContinuityPorn: A whole lot; see ContinuityNod above.
33	** This novel teams up Bosch and [=McCaleb=]. It throws in an appearance by Jack [=McEvoy=], hero of non-Bosch novel ''Literature/ThePoet'', for no particular reason. And it even includes a reference to Thelma the parole officer from non-Bosch novel ''Literature/VoidMoon'', letting the reader know that Thelma survived getting shot and has gone back to work.
34	** The murder victim is one Edward Gunn, a former prime suspect in one of Bosch's cases. Bosch threw his supervisor Harvey Pounds through a window after Pounds read Gunn his MirandaRights, which led Gunn to lawyer up. This whole story, which proves crucial to the plot, is also the backstory of 1995 Bosch novel ''Literature/TheLastCoyote''. It's why Bosch is on involuntary stress leave and visiting a psychiatrist at the start of that novel.
35	* DeadGuyJunior: [=McCaleb=] was so taken with "Cielo Azul", the name Bosch gave to an anonymous murder victim, that he named his daughter after her.
36	* DirtyBusiness: How Bosch views [[spoiler:letting Tafero kill Gunn so he could turn around and take Tafero and Storey off the board]].
37	--> ''"Three people -- three monsters -- are gone."''
38	* DrowningMySorrows: Bosch has really developed a drinking problem in this novel; [=McCaleb=] notices it repeatedly. Along with the smoking, it's clearly a symptom of his having lost Eleanor.
39	* EroticAsphyxiation: The murder victim in the David Storey case is found nude with a scarf around her neck in a pose that would suggest auto-erotic asphyxia, but Bosch believes that the scene was staged to disguise a murder as an accident.
40	* FrameUp: The whole Edward Gunn murder is an elaborate plot to frame Bosch in order to sabotage the case against Storey.
41	* GoodIsNotNice: Harry Bosch more or less [[spoiler:let Tafero kill Gunn]], and tries to justify it with IDidWhatIHadToDo.
42	** Also, he makes a couple of truly cruel remarks to Tafero after the brothers try to kill [=McCaleb=] and Bosch.
43	--> ''"Yeah, it's too bad," Bosch said without a note of sympathy in his voice. "The kid had a bright future helping you kill people and getting people out of jail."''
44	* HighClassCallGirl: Turns out that Annabelle Crowe teeters on the edge of this, accepting cash and other gifts from the men she goes out with. This does not help when she testifies for the prosecution in the David Storey trial.
45	* IDidWhatIHadToDo: Bosch's response to [=McCaleb=]'s WhatTheHellHero speech.
46	* IntrepidReporter: Jack [=McEvoy=], hero of ''The Poet'', turns up as the reporter who gets the Bosch-Gunn story. Bosch has to hustle to find out who the real killer is before [=McEvoy=] publishes his story and torpedoes the David Storey case.
47	* {{Irony}}: In a past-case flashback, someone says that Bosch must have kids because of a clue he spotted. Of course, he didn't in the past case, and as far as he, or the reader, knows doesn't in the present time, either. But as [[HeartwarmingInHindsight we discover later, he actually does have a daughter by this point]].
48	* JumpedAtTheCall: [=McCaleb=]'s only real character flaw in this book, and one Connelly doesn't shy away from: when Winston shows up, he puts up the weakest resistance humanly possible before accepting the case, despite knowing that it's a bad idea and will hurt his relationship with his wife.
49	* KnightTemplar: Given his earlier classifications of Bosch as an "Avenging Angel" and a "Man on a Mission," this is what [=McCaleb=] suspects Bosch has [[FaceHeelTurn finally crossed over to]]. He comes around.
50	* LeadPoliceDetective: Harry hasn't been on the witness stand for a while, so [[ShowDontTell this is our first chance in several years to hear him explain in so many words what his job is and where it fits in the ranks]]. As of this novel, he is a Detective 3rd grade, which he explains is equivalent to Detective Sergeant, but that's a rank the LAPD does not use; one step up would be Detective Lieutenant. Also, he specifies that he is the lead detective of a three-detective team at Hollywood division's homicide squad, with some supervisory responsibilities over other officers.
51	* LoopholeAbuse: The government won't keep paying for Terry's medication if his income surpasses the limit required to qualify for the benefit. His charter fishing business officially belongs to Buddy, who merely rents Terry's boat for the business. The rent doesn't count as Terry's income because he signed the boat to his wife.
52	* MenCantKeepHouse: Subtly inverted when [=McCaleb=] sets a cold beer down on one of Bosch's speakers, and Bosch picks it up and wipes the wet ring away. Feeds into [=McCaleb=]'s profiling of Bosch, adding a touch of [[NeatFreak OCD]] to his KillerCop suspicions.
53	* MurderByInaction: [[spoiler:The ending reveals that Harry knew that the bad guys were going to kill Gunn and did nothing to stop it. For all his CowboyCop antics and his hardboiled persona Harry's sense of right and wrong usually stops him from doing stuff like this. [=McCaleb=] calls him out in the last chapter and the novel ends with Harry agonizing about whether he crossed the MoralEventHorizon.]]
54	* NewYearHasCome: The murder [=McCaleb=] is investigating took place on Jan. 1, 2001 and is the first murder of the year for the LAPD. Det. Jaye Winston speculates that it may have something to do with the turn of the millennium.
55	* OnePhoneCall: A plot point, as [=McCaleb=] wonders how Gunn got bailed out of jail when his phone call to his sister was rejected.
56	* OneDialogueTwoConversations: Terry thinks that Buddy Lockridge is apologizing for leaking information about the case to a reporter. Buddy didn't leak to the reporter; he was apologizing for hiring a hooker to visit him on Terry's boat.
57	* OminousOwl: The killer leaves owl figurines as tokens.
58	* OrgyOfEvidence: [=McCaleb=] initially thinks it's a sign of a [[FrameUp frame]], but his [[TheProfiler profiler's]] instincts take over and he comes to think Bosch has all the markings of a KillerCop. It's a frame.
59	* PleaBargain: [[spoiler:Rudy Tafero exposes David Storey in exchange for avoiding the death penalty. After Tafero produces evidence to keep people from suspecting he's lying to save his own life, Storey agrees to plead guilty so he'll also avoid the death penalty.]]
60	* ProductPlacement: Du-Par's restaurant, apparently [[CreatorThumbprint a favorite of Connelly's]].
61	* PronouncingMyNameForYou: Connelly helpfully tells us that Judge Houghton has a nickname: "Shootin' Houghton," which establishes that his last name is pronounced to rhyme with "Shootin'."
62	* QuipToBlack: When Fowkkes' PunnyName finally pays off:
63	--> ''"That's all, Fowkkes," Bosch said under his breath.''
64	* RightForTheWrongReasons: Jaye Winston has a suspicion that the Gunn murder investigation cannot wait, and she is absolutely correct about that; the problem is, she [[WrongGenreSavvy suspects]] that it's a SerialKiller case and there will soon be another victim. The fact is, everything is part of a FrameUp to discredit Harry Bosch's testimony at the David Storey trial. Had she not gotten Terry [=McCaleb=] involved, it's entirely possible that [[XanatosGambit Storey's plan]] would have worked.
65	* SayingTooMuch: [[spoiler:How Bosch accidentally reveals that he knew who killed Gunn and let the Storey conspiracy happen.]]
66	* ShoutOut:
67	** When [=McCaleb=] arrives at ''The Following Sea'', Buddy says he's watching "a show about this task force that goes after computer hackers", almost certainly a reference to ''[[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0244627/reference Level 9]]'', a short-lived series of which Connelly was an executive director. (See Trivia page for more.)
68	** Like in ''Literature/BloodWork'', the book Buddy is reading (here identified only by title but almost certainly Val [=McDermid=]'s ''The Wire in the Blood'') is real; this one is another murder mystery and follows the work of two profilers chasing down a serial killer. Like the Bosch stories would later be, this book and others about it's main characters would later be made into a [[Series/WireInTheBlood TV series]].
69	** [=McCaleb=] tells Bosch that, to the bureau's civil rights division, nailing down an [=LAPD=] cop is more valuable than [[TabletopGame/{{Monopoly}} Park Place and Boardwalk]] together.
70	** Terry knows that one suspect is the killer when he looks at the suspect's book shelf and sees a copy of ''Literature/TheCollector''.
71	** Harry lures Annabelle Crowe out of hiding by tricking her into coming for a fake audition for a remake of ''Film/{{Chinatown}}''.
72	* SignificantName: Creator/HieronymusBosch was a Dutch painter who specialized in nightmarish hellscapes. The rather dark nature of the original Bosch's work, as well as elements of several Bosch paintings occurring in Gunn's murder scene, leads [=McCaleb=] to take even more interest in Detective Harry Bosch as a murder suspect.
73	** In-universe, [=McCaleb=] and Winston's finding ''Jerome Van Aiken'' and ''Lubbert Das'' in the order records for the owl figure were [[OrgyOfEvidence big pieces of evidence]] in the FrameUp against Bosch.
74	* SpottingTheThread: Bosch accuses [=McCaleb=] of having "missed something," which compels [=McCaleb=] to go back through the case again, where he finds the clues that unravel the case.
75	* AStormIsComing: Bosch thinks this as he fights his way through the scrum of reporters at the David Storey trial.
76	* SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome: Downplayed, since we aren't told Gunn's name when we see him in the prologue, and it isn't made clear until some time after we learn he died that that was ''him'' in the prologue.
77	* SwitchingPOV: Switches back and forth between dual protagonists [=McCaleb=] and Bosch.
78	* TitleDrop: An art expert describes the bleak darkness of Hieronymus Bosch's worldview as "a darkness more than night."
79	* TookALevelInJerkass: Harry Bosch, two years after losing his wife Eleanor, has developed something of a drinking problem, has gone back to smoking, and is in every way very much the asshole he has regularly been referred to by other characters. Even being framed for murder doesn't really make him a more sympathetic character. Since he does not have the sole spotlight in this story, we get to see him at a little more of a distance than usual, and the picture isn't pretty.
80	* ATrueStoryInMyUniverse: The [[Literature/BloodWork book]] and [[Film/BloodWork film]] of ''Blood Work'' are, in universe, BasedOnATrueStory of [=McCaleb=]'s investigation of the Code Killer.
81	* WeMeetAgain: [=McCaleb=], word for word, after using the term "[=UnSub=]" to refer to Gunn's killer in his notes.
82	* WhamLine: A very minor one, given that it comes early, but to those familiar with Connelly's 'verse, Edward Gunn's name as the victim in the murder book [=McCaleb=] is working through instantly brings Harry Bosch's presence in this story into focus.
83	* WhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler:Bosch gets a strong dose of this after [=McCaleb=] confronts him and leaves. He gets over it.]]
84	* WhatTheHellHero: [[spoiler:[=McCaleb=] gives this speech to Bosch when he figures out that Bosch more or less let David Storey's conspiracy play out in order to get Gunn killed. Bosch throws it right back at him for the way [=McCaleb=] went to Rudy Tafero's office and provoked him, resulting in the death of Tafero's brother when they try to kill [=McCaleb=].]]
85	* WrongGenreSavvy: What [=McCaleb=]'s suspicions about Bosch amount to. He was a very successful FBI serial killer [[TheProfiler profiler]] but has been out of the game for a while, so naturally, when clues start pointing toward Bosch being a KillerCop, he runs with it. The problem is, this isn't actually a SerialKiller story, it's a FrameUp story using a SerialKiller motif. In his prime, [=McCaleb=] probably wouldn't have been fooled.

Context Literature / ADarknessMoreThanNight