History Literature / TheBlackEcho

* LoopholeAbuse: Beverly Hills Safe & Lock's selling point is the fact their clients' belongings are as safe there as they would be in bank vaults but without the legal restrictions placed on banks since they aren't a bank.

* BatmanGambit: Eleanor Wish pulls one against the guys responsible for killing her brother. With mixed results.

* {{Blackmail}}: Knowing it's unlikely Eleanor will be convicted on his word, Bosch tells her he'll tell the people whose diamonds the robbers targeted about her unless she confesses. She turns herself in.
* BloodFromTheMouth: Happens with Rourke after Eleanor Wish shoots him in the tunnel. Bosch notes correctly that this means Rourke was shot through the lungs.

** Eleanor's story about her brother, and how she wants "justice" for him after he didn't come back from Vietnam. Turns out that's her motive. Then there's Sharkey's description of a big man and a small man disposing of the body--the "small man" was Eleanor.

* DetectiveMole: Special Agent John Rourke, the FBI agent in charge of the bank robbery unit, was the mastermind behind the [=WestLand=] bank robbery and is plotting another bank job. And Eleanor Wish was in it with him, although she has ulterior motives of her own that involve revenge for her brother's death all those years ago.
* DirtyCop: FBI special agent Rourke is the murderer and the bank robber mastermind, and Eleanor Wish is in on it with him.
* DragonWithAnAgenda: Eleanor Wish. She is in cahoots with Rourke about the bank robbery and even was an accessory after the fact in covering up the murder of Meadows. But her real agenda was to destroy Rourke for murdering her brother some 20 years earlier.

* GladYouThoughtOfIt: Eleanor got Rourke into reuniting Meadows, Franklin and Delgado for the caper by making him think it was his idea.

* InternalAffairs: Played straight, with loathesome IA cops Lewis and Clarke ("the explorers"), who hate the hell out of CowboyCop Harry Bosch and long to bust him from the LAPD and hopefully put him in prison.
* JerkassHasAPoint: Bosch is called an asshole by one of the IAD cops early in the book. It's a long time before we really get an objective look at Harry (when he finally appears as a secondary character in ''Literature/ADarknessMoreThanNight''), but there's really no question about it: he truly is an asshole.
* JustBetweenYouAndMe: Rather than just shooting Bosch in the tunnel, Rourke goes on a long rant where he fills in some details about the plot, and complains about Harry Bosch ruining his plans. This allows enough time for Eleanor Wish to show up and shoot him.
* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: The murder that starts the story is carefully staged to look like a heroin overdose. Harry Bosch is not fooled. It turns out the people who did it have previously done the same to Eleanor's brother years ago and she orchestrated the caper as part of a revenge plan against them.

* NighthawksShot: Eleanor has a framed print of ''Nighthawks''. Harry and Eleanor commiserate about how they're a couple of loners who found each other like in the painting, with Eleanor even calling them "a couple of nighthawks."

* PinkMist: "...blood and brain spattered the wall behind him" as Pierce is shot to death by the robbers from the tunnel.

* SwitchingPOV: No fewer than four POV--Bosch, Sharkey the teenaged delinquent and murder suspect, Lewis and Clarke the IA cops, and Deputy Chief Irvin Irving. EarlyInstallmentWeirdness for Connelly, who has never used more than two POV in later novels.
* ThereAreNoCoincidences: Bosch says this word-for-word when he realizes that the dead guy in the pipe is his old Army buddy. He thinks the same thing later when seeing Rourke's name in Meadows' file. He's half right. The bad guys [[SubvertedTrope say it really was a coincidence]] that the detective sent to the place where Meadows' body was dumped knew him, but the Rourke-Meadows connection is not a coincidence and in fact is what leads Harry to solve the mystery. The place chosen by Eleanor to dump Meadows' body was chosen because it was in Bosch's turf and it'd get Bosch involved regardless of which detective would answer the call.

* WallSlump: Rourke's look of surprise when he does this after Eleanor shoots him helps Harry figure out her part in the crime.

* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: The murder that starts the story is carefully staged to look like a heroin overdose. Harry Bosch is not fooled.

* ThereAreNoCoincidences: Bosch says this word-for-word when he realizes that the dead guy in the pipe is his old Army buddy. He thinks the same thing later when seeing Rourke's name in Meadows' file. He's half right. The bad guys [[SubvertedTrope say it really was a coincidence]] that the detective sent to the place where Meadows' body was dumped knew him, but the Rourke-Meadows connection is not a coincidence and in fact is what leads Harry to solve the mystery.

* SpannerInTheWorks: Meadows' killers expected it'd take longer for his body to be found and the authorities would dismiss him as some heroin addict who died of a fatal overdosis. The body was found on the very same night and the detective sent to investigate knew Meadows and decided to investigate.

* ThereAreNoCoincidences: Bosch says this word-for-word when he realizes that the dead guy in the pipe is his old Army buddy. He thinks the same thing later when seeing Rourke's name in Meadows' file. Both times he is right. The bad guys [[SubvertedTrope do say it was a coincidence]] that the detective sent to the place where Meadows' body was dumped knew him. It messed their plans.

* TheTriadsAndTheTongs: The original [[BigBad Big Bads]] behind the events that led to the plot.