No matter how much critics and readers love him, Connelly's Harry Bosch is definitely a downer. To catch the spirit of the popular series without sending listeners leaping out of their windows requires an unusually talented reader, who can take the tiny shreds of light the author sprinkles very sparingly through his dark and bloody outings and turn them into veritable bonfires. Fortunately, Cariou is a veteran of four previous Bosch audios who knows his man down to his obsessive socks. Cariou can also do Connelly's normal, only semidepressed supporting characters with grace and depth: Harry's female partner, other cops with mixed motives, crooked lawyers, on-the-make politicians, even a convicted serial killer trying to escape the death penalty by reopening one of Bosch's old wounds. Cariou, of course, can't remove Harry's guilt or ease his obsessions: he's an actor, not a therapist. But his talent adds a Prozac-like sense of ease not to be taken lightly.
