I stayed up one night to finish The Memory Library this week, but I really spent a couple days celebrating my birthday instead of reading. On Tuesday, I spent time on the phone with family and friends, and then went to my sister’s for my birthday dinner and cake. On Wednesday, my Mom and other sister came down and we sat and talked, went out to lunch, and then came back home for homemade brownies (mmmm) and ice cream. Thanks to my family for the celebrations, Kevin for my birthday dinner, and Christie for the brownies, as well as the nice gifts, including flowers. So, that’s what I did the last couple days. Now, as I”m writing this, we’re under a tornado watch until 4 AM.

I’m currently reading Black Tunnel White Magic by Rick Jackson and Matthew McGough. It’s true crime, with an introduction by Michael Connelly because it was one of his early stories as a crime reporter. Rick Jackson was one of the two detectives that worked on the case up to and through the time he retired.

Here’s the summary since I’m only about a third of the way through it. In June 1990, Ronald Baker, a straight-A UCLA student, was found repeatedly stabbed to death in a tunnel near Spahn Ranch, where Charles Manson and his followers once livedShortly thereafter, Detective Rick Jackson and his partner, Frank Garcia, were assigned the caseYet the facts made no sense. Who would have a motive to kill Ron Baker in such a grisly manner? Was the proximity to the Manson ranch related to the murder? And what about the pentagram pendant Ron wore around his neck?

Jackson and Garcia soon focused their investigation on Baker’s two male roommates, one Black, and one white. What emerges is at once a story of confounding betrayal and cold-hearted intentions, as well as a larger portrait of an embattled Los Angeles, a city in the grip of the Satanic Panic and grappling with questions of racial injustice and police brutality in the wake of Rodney King.

In straightforward, matter-of-fact prose, Rick Jackson, the now-retired police detective who helped inspire Michael Connelly’s beloved Harry Bosch, along with co-writer, Matthew McGough, take us through the events as he and his partner experienced them, piecing together the truth with each emerging clue. Black Tunnel White Magic is the true story of a murder in cold blood, deception and betrayal, and a city at the brink, set forth by the only man who could tell it.


What about you? How are you doing this week? What are you reading?