Connelly deserves to be up there with James Lee Burke and Carl Hiaasen as the best trio presently writing American thriller fiction. His novels featuring LAPD Detective Harry Bosch have all been top class, while his ventures in the serial killer genre, The Poet and Blood Work, are excellently and believably plotted. This time his protagonist is a woman, Cassie Black, on parole from prison after serving five years for operating a "hot prowl" - robbing casino gamblers of their winnings. Desperate for the big pay-off that will enable her to break free and live her own life in some South Sea Island paradise, she takes on a job to rob a mark in the same Las Vegas casino, the Cleopatra, which saw her and her partner's original downfall. The set-up turns out to be a scam, and soon Cassie is running for her life, pursued by a psychopath named Jack Karch, as fascinating a fictional villain as has ever been created. But Cassie herself is no slouch, either, and the resulting chase becomes a devious battle of wits between two equally determined characters. One of Connelly's strengths is his ability continually to surprise, his plot twisting sinuously around and about the main narrative like a snake around its prey. Building his storyline like the contents of a Pandora's Box, he piles revelation upon revelation, until the final climax, set once more in the penthouse of the Cleopatra, brings a grimly satisfying tale to its close. Void Moon is Michael Connelly at his best, and that is the very best where thriller writing is concerned.
Vincent Banville is a writer and critic