Michael Connelly is an impressive writer. His last book, The Scarecrow, was published on May 26, 2009 and then he published his latest book, Nine Dragons, less than 6 months later on October 16, 2009. Plus he published another book last year.

Not only does he write quickly, but his work is still good. I give Nine Dragons a B+. It’s good, but not great. If you like police procedurals, you’ll like this book. You probably won’t love it, but it’s a fun read. Unlike The Scarecrow, which is about a newspaper writer, Connelly brings back his main protagonist Detective Harry Bosch. My complaint about many Harry Bosch novels is that Connelly has Bosch do something bullheaded and stupid during the book’s climax. Luckily, this book does that suffer from that problem.

I don’t give this book an A because Connelly didn’t hold my rapt attention the entire novel. He carried me along well, but I wasn’t on my the edge of my seat the entire time.

I’m a fan of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s books, but Riptide is a book you should skip. The setting, plot, and characters were all decent, but I didn’t buy the villain’s character arc, and as a result I can’t recommend the book. Here’s what Publisher’s Weekly had to say about the book:

The novel suffers from a diffusion of villains as the authors variously demonize the Pit, the Pit’s designer, the crazed expedition leader and the Sword as and from workaday prose and assembly-line characters (a computer nerd, a sexy French archeologist, a righteous minister). Machine-gun pacing, startling plot twists and smart use of legend, scientific lore (including cyptanalysis) and the evocative setting carry the day, however, resulting in an exciting boys’ adventure tale for adults that’s bound to be one of most popular of the summer reads.

I didn’t have a problem with the workaday prose or the assembly-line character, just the character arc which killed the book for me.