Chasing the Dime » (Abridged)

A former Los Angeles Times crime reporter, Michael Connelly s familiarity with the seamy side of L.A. adds a steamy kind of street cred to his hardboiled, gritty detective novels -- especially his bestselling series of mysteries featuring dark detective Hieronymous Harry Bosch.

Henry Pierce has a whole new life: a new apartment, a new telephone, a new telephone number. But the first time he checks his messages, he finds a message for the woman who had the number before him, and it seems that Lilly is in some serious trouble. Pierce is inexorably drawn into Lilly's world of escort services, Web sites, sex, and secret identities. Now, he'll abandon his orderly life in a frantic race to save the life of a woman he's never met. But every step into Lilly's past takes Pierce deeper into a web of inescapable intricacy, which leads him toward a decision that could cost him everything he owns—and everything he holds dear.

Publishers Weekly

Former journalist and Edgar Award winner Connelly (City of Bones) skillfully unfolds a story of obsessive curiosity and taut psychological suspense ideally suited to audio translation. A burgeoning technologies company, broken engagement and new apartment leave little time for 34-year-old workaholic chemist Henry Pierce to even check his messages. But when he does, he realizes his new telephone number was formerly that of a beautiful prostitute named Lilly, who's still receiving dozens of messages, but hasn't been heard from in over a month. Veteran audiobook narrator and actor Davis provides crisp, stage-honed vocals, with his versatile characterizations easily shifting from the Valley talk of an aging surfer/computer hacker to the hesitant pleas of Lilly's johns. Haunted by his own sister's murder, Henry eschews his normal all-business demeanor and plunges head first into the seedy sex underworld, where he befriends a hardened escort, makes a grisly discovery that may prove Lilly's demise, as well as his own, and is fingered as the prime suspect by the cops. Davis's masterful dramatizations deliver the perfect complement to Connelly's sophisticated mystery, sure to attract fans of his Harry Bosch series, as well as new listeners. Simultaneous release with the Little, Brown hardcover (Forecasts, Sept. 16). (Oct.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.