Blood Work (Terry McCaleb Series #1) by Michael Connelly

From Barnes & Noble

Terrell McCaleb has been one of the brightest and most effective serial-killer investigators in the history of the FBI. But when he's sidelined by a heart-transplant operation, McCaleb decides to trade in his badge for a full-time position restoring his treasured yacht. But that proves short-lived, for soon Garciella Rivers, who is mourning her sister's brutal murder, convinces McCaleb to help her hunt down the elusive killer. Now that McCaleb is on the trail of an unpredictable and extremely dangerous madman, his own life is on the chopping block.

From the Publisher

Thanks to a heart transplant, former FBI agent Terrell McCaleb is enjoying a quiet retirement, renovating the fishing boat he lives on in Los Angeles Harbor. But McCaleb's calm seas turn choppy when a story in the "What Happened To?" column of the LA Times brings him face-to-face with the sister of the woman whose heart now beats in his chest. From her, McCaleb learns a terrible truth: that the donor of his heart was not killed in an accident, as he'd been told, but was murdered.

Wracked with guilt over the fact that he's alive because another human being was killed, McCaleb embarks on a private investigation of his donor's murder - a crime as horrific as anything he ever encountered as a serial killer investigator for the FBI.

Washington Post Book World - Paul Skenazy

A wonderfully taut read.

People - Lambert

Compelling. . .A spine-tingling manhunt guaranteed to boost the blood pressure.

Los Angeles Times

The top of the class of new mystery writers.

Barry Forshaw

Familiar elements in Connelly's work are given a disorienting twist that's hard to pin down but makes for a smooth and involving read....As in his five Harry Bosch novels, the set-pieces are handled with panache, and McCaleb is a pleasingly vulnerable hero. -- Crime-Time

Pam Lambert

Compelling. . .A spine-tingling manhunt guaranteed to boost the blood pressure. -- People Magazine

Lambert

Compelling. . .A spine-tingling manhunt guaranteed to boost the blood pressure. -- People (Page Turner of the Week)

Paul Skenazy

A wonderfully taut read. -- Washington Post Book World

Chicago Tribune

A richly detailed and totally absorbing thriller. . . .Be prepared to read this one straight through. It's that good.

A richly detailed and totally absorbing thriller. . . .Be prepared to read this one straight through. It's that good. Chicago Tribune

Kirkus Reviews

Another of Connelly's volcanic lawmen confronts his nightmare double—the killer whose brutal crime saved the hero's life. Two years after a bad heart sidelined him from the FBI, Terry McCaleb gets another chance, and another heart, thanks to Gloria Torres, shot in a convenience store holdup. McCaleb's well on the way to recovery when Gloria's sister, emergency room nurse Graciela Rivers, tells him who donated his new heart and begs him to reopen Gloria's stalled case. The job seems impossible—after all, what kinds of clues could the LAPD or McCaleb dig up on a random crime of opportunity?—but longtime fans of Connelly's nailbiters will know that the holdup is anything but random.

They won't be surprised when McCourt, scrutinizing a videotape of the robbery, picks up telltale details the cops never spotted, or when he sees that Gloria's murder is only part of a pattern of killings. From here on in, though, it's best not to say too much about Connelly's bag of tricks. Once the suspect McCaleb's confronted attacks him (painful stuff for a convalescent whose cardiologist warned him that the excitement of the chase alone was enough to put him back in the hospital) and takes off, McCaleb, fortified by his budding romance with Graciela and his delight in Gloria's seven-year-old son Raymond, hunkers down with a jumble of surveillance tapes, fortuitous eyewitnesses and earwitnesses, and tiny discrepancies that open up big breaks in the case. But the closer McCourt gets to his quarry, the more closely he fits the profile of the killer himself—a coincidence not lost on the cops who've resented his involvement all along. A tormented hero, a canny and malicious killer,endlessly patient detective work alternating with dark threats and tense action scenes: Connelly seems bent on wiring together every clich‚ of the mano-a-mano genre and juicing them till they sing.

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Interviews & Essays
• Read a Sample Chapter

Table of Contents

Interviews & Essays

Michael Connelly: They're fine. I'm in a hotel room in Portland. I just came from a Barnes & Noble about a half hour ago, where I signed books.

Michael Connelly: I would say he must, but none that I can put my finger on. But I think all my characters, Harry Bosch in particular, were influenced by the books I've read and loved.

Michael Connelly: The desire to write about a heart transplant has been sitting in my head for several years, since a good friend of mine received a heart transplant. And seeing the physical and emotional changes that he went through sort of inspired me to one day write about it. It wasn't until a few years passed by that the premise of how to use that in a crime novel came to me, and that is when I decided to write the story that became BLOOD WORK.

Michael Connelly: I think I personally don't see any problems with the warnings that they have at the beginning of shows, and that's probably because I recently became a father, and it stems from my sheltering ideas for my daughter. It is a part of the game that if you sell your books to a movie or TV studio, you are allowing them to do what they want. You don't have a say in the matter. I have sold my books to movie studios, so it is their turn to tell the story how they want. One of my books, THE POET, was a pretty dark book and dealt with child endangerment. It is being prepared for production as an HBO movie, and I know that they have already toned down the child-endangerment aspects of the book. I don't have a problem with that.

Michael Connelly: James Lee Burke and Lawrence Block are two whose books I never miss. I like reading fellow L.A. writers like Robert Crais, Jan Burke, and a new writer named Eddie Little. Another favorite of mine is George Pelecanos. But I'm always looking for new voices in mystery, for the hot new book.

Michael Connelly: I think a good way would be to also encourage him to read, because reading is the best way to learn how stories work and how to write them. I wrote stories as a little kid, and my mom turned me into a voracious reader, and I doubt I'd be a writer now if I hadn't been such a reader.

Michael Connelly: No. A new character.

Michael Connelly: I've never tried other genres, nor do I have a desire to. From my earliest days as a reader, dating back to reading Hardy Boys novels, I've just been fascinated with mysteries.

Michael Connelly: I'm at a Barnes & Noble in Framingham at the end of this month, March 27th. That wil be my first trip to New England, as far as promoting books. I hope to bring back Jack someday. I just need the right story to do it, and so far it hasn't hit me.

Michael Connelly: No, I haven't read that book, and I'm not too familiar with DeMille, but I'm sure there are many books that follow a similar path. In writing mysteries, it is very hard to find an original idea, so what you try to do is bring some original thought to an old idea. I hope I did that with BLOOD WORK.

Michael Connelly: I was out on the streets a lot during the riots in 1992 and saw a lot of bizarre and awful things, and I've never really captured the surreal atmosphere of those nights in a book. It is something I want to do someday.

Michael Connelly: Unfortunately, I'll be in Europe on a book tour. I'm sorry to miss it, because it is a very good and enjoyable festival.

Michael Connelly: I'm doing a reading tonight at Powell's in Beaverton, 7pm.

Michael Connelly: It's kind of like I do that every night. [Laughs] We might talk about jazz, and I might want to ask him about why he is so unyielding in his moral code. Why he never practices the philosophy of "go along to get along." Because I think that is what makes him interesting to me as a writer. In real life we all make compromises with ourselves, but Harry doesn't, and it usually ends up costing him. A beer! But I think Harry's a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy. And if he ordered a steak, it would be well done. [Laughs]

Michael Connelly: What I want to do as a writer, and what I want to say, I think I can say through Harry Bosch, but it is my duty and my burden to make sure Harry stays fresh and interesting. I have found that one of the best ways of doing this is to take time away from him and do something else. So writing about a new character, like Terry, is fun and also therapeutic, and ultimately helps make Harry Bosch better the next time. I anm just finishing a Harry Bosch novel now that will be out near the end of this year or early next year.

Michael Connelly: Yes, I do: Peter Robinson, John Harvey, Ian Rankin, and Val McDermott.

Michael Connelly: I think it has impacted it in that it has helped spread word about my work through venues like this and other chats that I've done and so forth. As a writer, it has given me something to explore in terms of its uses in books. The Internet has played a part in my books THE POET and, to a limited extent, BLOOD WORK. It plays a big part in the Harry Bosch novel I am just finishing up now.

Michael Connelly: I am enjoying it quite a bit, and yes, I am very fortunate in that I have a job where I can set my schedule and I can also work at home. So I am around my daughter quite a bit. Except when I'm on tour, like right now.

Michael Connelly: Raymond Chandler. I discovered his books while I was in college at the University of Florida. That was when I pointed my schooling in the direction of me becoming a writer.

Michael Connelly: There is a lot of interest in Hollywood, but it seems things never get started. The first four Bosch books have been optioned by the studios, but they are in what they call the development stages, so in my mind it is still a long shot.

Michael Connelly: He is named after a painter from the 15th century, who painted some very bizarre canvases. I happened to study him a little in college, and the work always stayed with me. When I was creating this Bosch character, I used the name because I think in a way the painter's work could be seen as metaphorical for today's Los Angeles.

Michael Connelly: Probably THE LAST COYOTE, because it was a book I knew I would write from the beginning, a story I knew I had to tell about Harry Bosch. I waited four books to write it, so when the time finally came to do it, I was very happy and excited to write it. I think it is still my favorite book.

Michael Connelly: I think any kind of mindset. You just have to want to say something about it, not just write about brutality for the sake of brutality. I like to explore the reasons behind things happening. It is a fact of life, and I know from my own experience as a reporter that the cruelest things on earth are people, and that to me is a fascinating concept that can be and should be explored. I think that is why mysteries or crime novels are one of the most popular genres of books going these days.

Michael Connelly: I didn't read the Boxcar Children, and the Hardy Boys are really far back there in the mist. I remember the MYSTERY OF THE FLYING EXPRESS. Since I remember the title, maybe that was my favorite one?

Michael Connelly: I haven't written a short story yet. I'd like to do it sometime, but I think I'm kind of intimidated by it. I wrote an essay about becoming a father for an L.A. magazine last year. Other than that it has just been the novels.

Michael Connelly: Sure. I think writers obviously seek to be published because they want people to read their stories. So as the books become more popular, it is obviously more fulfilling to me as a writer. This is not to say that's why I do it, because I think I'd still be writing these stories even if I had a minuscule audience. I feel it is something I should do, because I enjoy it.

Michael Connelly: Well, I think in your question is the value of mystery novels, because you are right -- the moral fabric is unraveling, yet if you pick up a mystery novel, 95 percent of the time, right overcomes wrong, good overcomes evil, and therefore these books can in a way reinforce those notions that good should win. And they can be reassuring to us. For example, in L.A., where you and I live, the criminal justice system is suspect at best and is arguably completely broken down, when people get away with murder and other things. So it is sometimes good to enter a fictional world, where someone believes in a moral code and sticks to it, like Harry Bosch. I find that reassuring. Maybe that's why I write about him.

Michael Connelly: I actually miss my days at the Fort Lauderdale News, because it was a very fun time, and I was new to the business. But overall, I don't miss being a daily journalist. It was a good and fun job, but I think what I'm doing now is better and a lot more fun.

Michael Connelly: I think they are kindred souls. I think Bosch is a little more reckless, a little more psychologically damaged, but I think they would work well together if they were on an investigation, and someday I want to come up with an idea where that might happen.

Michael Connelly: It was a thrill to win it, especially for my first book. It was a great way to start out. I keep the actual award on a shelf in my office. Edgar sort of looks over me as I write.

Michael Connelly: L.A. is many different cities and societies in one. It is also on the front edge of all things good and bad about society. My wife calls it "having front-row seats on the apocalypse." But the point is, if something is going to happen in our society, or in one of our cities, there is a good chance it is going to happen in L.A. or New York, so this makes these great places to write about.

Michael Connelly: I am just happy that there is this kind of interest in the discussion of books. Generally in the media, the discussion of books is sort of usurped by more popular kinds of media, like movies and music, so it is neat that on the Internet there is this niche for book discussion. Goodnight to all. Thanks.

Read a Sample Chapter

CHAPTER ONE

McCaleb saw her before she saw him. He was coming down the main dock, past the row of millionaires' boats, when he saw the woman standing in the stern of The Following Sea. It was half past ten on a Saturday morning and the warm whisper of spring had brought a lot of people out to the San Pedro docks. McCaleb was finishing the walk he took every morning--completely around Cabrillo Marina, out along the rock jetty and back. He was huffing by this part of the walk, but he slowed his pace even more as he approached the boat. His first feeling was annoyance--the woman had boarded his boat uninvited. But as he got closer, he put that aside and wondered who she was and what she wanted.

She wasn't dressed for boating. She had on a loose summer dress that came to mid-thigh. The breeze off the water threatened to lift it and so she kept one hand at her side to keep it down. McCaleb couldn't see her feet yet but he guessed by the taut lines of the muscles he saw in her brown legs that she wasn't wearing boat shoes. She had raised heels on. McCaleb's immediate read was that she was there to make some kind of impression on someone.

McCaleb was dressed to make no impression at all. He had on an old pair of jeans ripped by wear, not for style, and a T-shirt from the Catalina Gold Cup tournament a few summers before. The clothes were spattered with stains--mostly fish blood, some of his own blood, marine polyurethane and engine oil. They had served him as both fishing and work clothes. His plan was to use the weekend to work on the boat and he was dressed accordingly.

He became more self-conscious about his appearance as he drew closer to the boat and could see the woman better. He pulled the foam pads of his portable off his ears and turned off the CD in the middle of Howlin' Wolf singing "I Ain't Superstitious."

"Can I help you?" he asked before stepping down into his own boat.

His voice seemed to startle her and she turned away from the sliding door that led into the boat's salon. McCaleb figured she had knocked on the glass and was waiting, expecting him to be inside.

"I'm looking for Terrell McCaleb."

She was an attractive woman in her early thirties, a good decade or so younger than McCaleb. There was a sense of familiarity about her but he couldn't quite place it. It was one of those deja vu things. At the same time he felt the stir of recognition, it quickly flitted away and he knew he was mistaken, that he did not know this woman. He remembered faces. And hers was nice enough not to forget.

She had mispronounced the name, saying Mc-Cal-ub instead of Mc-Kay-Leb, and used the formal first name that no one ever used except the reporters. That's when he began to understand. He knew now what had brought her to the boat. Another lost soul come to the wrong place.

"McCaleb," he corrected. "Terry McCaleb."

"Sorry. I, uh, I thought maybe you were inside. I didn't know if it was okay to walk on the boat and knock."

"But you did anyway."

She ignored the reprimand and went on. It was as if what she was doing and what she had to say had been rehearsed.

"I need to talk to you."

"Well, I'm kind of busy at the moment."

He pointed to the open bilge hatch she was lucky not to have fallen into and the tools he had left spread out on a drop cloth by the stern transom.

"I've been walking around, looking for this boat, for almost an hour," she said. "It won't take long. My name is Graciela Rivers and I wanted--"

"Look, Miss Rivers," he said, holding his hands up and interrupting. "I'm really ... You read about me in the newspaper, right?" She nodded.

"Well, before you start your story, I have to tell you, you're not the first one to come out here and find me or to get my number and call me. And I'm just going to tell you what I told all of the others. I'm not looking for a job. So if this is about you wanting to hire me or have me help you some way, I'm sorry, but I can't do it. I'm not looking for that kind of work."

She didn't say anything and he felt a pang of sympathy for her, just as he had for the others who had come to him before her.

"Look, I do know a couple of private investigators I can recommend. Good ones that will work hard and won't rip you off."

He stepped over to the stern gunwale, picked up the sunglasses he had forgotten to take on his walk and put them on, signaling the end of the conversation. But the gesture and his words went by her.

"The article said you were good. It said you hated it whenever somebody got away."

He put his hands in his pockets and hiked his shoulders.

"You have to remember something. It was never me alone. I had partners, I had the lab teams, I had the whole bureau behind me. It's a lot different than one guy running around out there on his own. A lot different. I probably couldn't help you even if I wanted to."

She nodded and he thought that he had gotten through to her and that would be the end of this one. He started thinking about the valve job on one of the boat's engines that he'd planned to complete over the weekend.

But he was wrong about her.

"I think you could help me," she said. "Maybe help yourself, too."

"I don't need the money. I do okay."

"I'm not talking about money."

He looked at her for a beat before replying.

"I don't know what you mean by that," he said, injecting exasperation into his voice. "But I can't help you. I've got no badge anymore and I'm not a private investigator. It would be illegal for me to act as one or to accept money without a state license. If you read the story in the paper, then you know what happened to me. I'm not even supposed to be driving a car."

He pointed toward the parking lot beyond the row of docks and the gangway.

"You see the one wrapped up like a Christmas present? That's mine. It's sitting there until I get my doctor's approval to drive again. What kind of investigator would that make me? I'd be taking the bus."

She ignored his protest and just looked at him with a resolute expression that unnerved him. He didn't know how he was going to get her off the boat.

"I'll go get those names for you."

He walked around her and slid open the salon door. After going in, he pulled the door shut behind him. He needed the separation. He went to the drawers below the chart table and began looking for his phone book. He hadn't needed it in so long he wasn't sure where it was. He glanced out through the door and watched her step to the stern and lean her hips against the transom as she waited.

There was reflective film on the glass of the door. She couldn't see him watching her. The sense of familiarity came over him again and he tried to place her face. He found her very striking. Dark almond-shaped eyes that seemed both sad and understanding of some secret at the same time. He knew he would easily remember if he had ever met her or even just observed her before. But nothing came. His eyes instinctively went to her hands in search of a ring. There was none. He had been right about her shoes. She wore sandals with two-inch cork heels. Her toenails were painted pink and showed off against her soft brown skin. He wondered if this was how she looked all the time, or if she had dressed to entice him into taking the job.

He found his phone book in the second drawer and quickly looked up the names Jack Lavelle and Tom Kimball. He wrote their names and numbers on an old marine service flier and opened the slider. She was opening her purse as he stepped out. He held up the paper. Here are two names. Lavelle is LAPD retired and Kimball was with the bureau. I worked with both and either will do a good job for you. Pick one and call. Make sure you tell him you got his name from me. He'll take care of you."

She didn't take the names from him. Instead she pulled a photo out of her purse and handed it to him. McCaleb took it without thinking. He realized immediately that this was a mistake. In his hand was a photo of a smiling woman watching a small boy blowing out candles on a birthday cake. McCaleb counted seven candles. At first he thought it was a picture of Rivers a few years younger. But then he realized it wasn't her. The woman in the photo had a rounder face and thinner lips. She wasn't as beautiful as Graciela Rivers. Though both had deep brown eyes, the eyes of the woman in the photo did not have the same intensity as the eyes of the woman now watching him.

"Your sister?"

"Yes. And her son."

"Which one?"

"What?"

"Which one is dead?"

The question was his second mistake, compounding the first by drawing him further in. He knew the moment he asked it that he should have just insisted that she take the names of the two private detectives and been done with it.

"My sister Gloria Torres. We called her Glory. That's her son, Raymond." He nodded and handed the photo back but she didn't take it. He knew she wanted him to ask what had happened but he was finally putting on the brakes.

"Look, this isn't going to work," he finally said. "I know what you're doing. It doesn't work on me."

"You mean you have no sympathy?"

He hesitated as the anger boiled up in his throat.

"I have sympathy. You read the newspaper story, you know what happened to me. Sympathy was my problem all along."

He swallowed it back and tried to clear away any ill feeling. He knew she was consumed by horrible frustrations. McCaleb had known hundreds of people like her. Loved ones taken from them without reason. No arrests, no convictions, no closure. Some or them were left zombies, their lives irrevocably changed. Lost souls. Graciela Rivers was one of them now. She had to be or she wouldn't have tracked him down. He knew that no matter what she said to him or how angry he got, she didn't deserve to be hit with his own frustrations as well. "Look," he said. "I just can't do this. I'm sorry."

He put a hand on her arm to lead her back to the dock step. Her skin was warm. He felt the strong muscle beneath the softness. He offered the photo again but she still refused to take it.

"Look at it again. Please. Just one more time and then I'll leave you alone. Tell me if you feel anything else?"

He shook his head and made a feeble hand gesture as if to say it made no difference to him.

"I was an FBI agent, not a psychic."

But he made a show of holding the photo up and looking at it anyway. The woman and the boy seemed happy. It was a celebration. Seven candles. McCaleb remembered that his parents were still together when he turned seven. But not much longer. His eyes were drawn to the boy more than the woman. He wondered how the boy would get along now without his mother.

"I'm sorry, Miss Rivers. I really am. But there is nothing I can do for you. Do you want this back or not?"

"I have a double of it. You know, two for the price of one. I thought you'd want to keep that one."

For the first time he felt the undertow in the emotional current. There was something else at play but he didn't know what. He looked closely at Graciela Rivers and had the sense that if he took another step, asked the obvious question, he would be pulled under. He couldn't help himself.

"Why would I want to keep it if I'm not going to be able to help you?"

She smiled in a sad sort of way.

"Because she's the woman who saved your life. I thought from time to time you might want to remind yourself of what she looked like, who she was."

He stared at her for a long moment but he wasn't really looking at Graciela Rivers. He was looking inward, running what she had just said through memory and knowledge and coming up short of its meaning.

"What are you talking about?"

It was all he could manage to ask. He had the sense that control of the conversation and everything else was tilting away from him and sliding across the deck to her. The undertow had him now. It was carrying him out.

She raised her hand but reached past the photo he was still holding out to her. She placed her palm on his chest and ran it down the front of his shirt, her fingers tracing the thick rope of the scar beneath. He let her do it. He stood there frozen and let her do it.

"Your heart," she said. "It was my sister's. She was the one who saved your life."