Chasing the Dime - Softcover

Henry Pierce is about to become very rich--as soon as his firm, Amedeo Technologies, gets an infusion of capital from a big backer. But the brilliant chemist's workaholic habits are disrupted when his lover, the former intelligence officer of his company, breaks up with him. Lonely and dispirited, he moves into a new apartment and gets a new phone number that attracts a lot of callers, but not for him. His new telephone number seems to have previously belonged to one Lilly Quinlan, an escort whose Internet photo arouses Henry's curiosity, especially when L.A. Darlings, whose Web page features the beautiful young woman, can't tell Henry how to find her. With the same single-mindedness that made him a high-tech superstar, Pierce pursues his search for the missing girl, motivated by his guilt over the disappearance years earlier of his own sister, who, like Lilly, was also a prostitute (and ultimately the victim of the Dollmaker, a serial killer from Connelly's 1994 novel The Concrete Blonde.) But that motive is too thin to support Pierce's sudden abandonment of his career at such a critical juncture, even if forces unknown to him are setting him up for a fall. Despite those holes in the plot and a less than compelling protagonist, the novel succeeds due to Connelly's literary and expository gifts and his more interesting secondary characters. --Jane Adams

Michael Connelly (born July 21, 1956, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American author of detective novels, notably those featuring Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch. Bosch, named after the Dutch painter of the same name, is the protagonist of a series of Connelly's novels. The character is an LAPD detective. The Black Echo, the first book featuring Bosch, won the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award for Best First Novel of 1992. Connelly has written other books outside the Bosch series, including Blood Work, which was made into a 2002 movie directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. In 2006, The Lincoln Lawyer was selected as one of ten books to feature in Richard and Judy's televised book club. Connelly is a graduate of the University of Florida, where he earned a bachelors degree in journalism. In addition to his books, Connelly has written for television.