Michael Connelly's "The Overlook"

It's on. At about 7:30 a.m., like a kid on Christmas morning, I ran down my rainy front steps to retrieve the NYT. (Yes, I am that much a hopeless crime fiction dork.) My daughter Sarah laughed at me.

I had considered waiting--hanging on until the serial was complete, then gorging myself all at once. Yeah, right. I apple-juiced the kids, gave them the funny pages of the Philly Inquirer, popped the top of a Diet Coke (I don't drink coffee) then sat down at the dining room table to savor this fresh hit of Bosch.

What's interesting is that this serial seems to take place after the events in Echo Park, the next Bosch book, which is due out in early October. There's a reference to "that mess over in Echo Park." Hmmm.

Anyway, it's only one installment in, and I'm hooked. The only problem with a serial, of course, is that I need to wait until next Saturday for the next hit. Which is sort of like being a junkie on the layaway plan.