I wouldn’t have put Wallander in the same category of some of these others until the last season of the show. But, ooooooh boy.
Martin Cruz Smith’s, Arkady Renko character (Gorky Park, Polar Star, Red Square, and then they get a lot worse from there…) was the first guy I thought of, but he doesn’t compare to some of the miserable bastards you all have dug up.
Agreed.
Another comic book detective/vigilante who seems pretty miserable is Rorschach from The Watchmen.
Ritchie Roberts in “American Ganster” seemed a lot worse off than gangster Frank Lucas. I didn’t quite understand the religiosity in his personal pursuit of justice (though it keeps cropping up.)
Harry Dresden has Seen Some Shit.
That’s a shame, because that’s just about the time Connelly figured out who Bosch was and what to do with him.
So would you recommend just starting with book 5 or 6, or is it necessary to read them in order?
Beat me to it. When I started the series, I characterized it as “sadsack noir”. Harry’s gained power over the course of it, but his personal life is still pretty bleak (MORE bleak than in the beginning, if you count the events in and since Changes).
I agree. Some of the earliest books are pretty bad.
Man, no way. On the one hand is everything terrible that dude has gone through. On the other hand,
He got to ride into battle on the back of Lucy the zombified T-Rex skeleton while Butters the coroner rode along, playing oompa music on his one-man band, in the single best scene in all literature.
so I refuse to believe he’s the most miserable. He’ll always have Lucy.
Not Lucy, Sue. The actual real-life Field Museum T-Rex skeleton.
D’oh! I KNEW I should have looked that up!
Ol’ [del]Hieronymous[/del] Harry was my first thought. Just reading the Bosch novels is enough to promote incipient depression.
Matt Scudder was pretty angst-ridden, what with the shooting that went bad, struggles with alcoholism etc.
I agree about Mathias. That scene where he plays a round of Russian roulette was one of the most chilling scenes I’ve seen recently. I like the series, but darned if those Welsh names aren’t hard to follow and sometimes the accents trip me up. But it’s a great series.
I can’t come up with another so emotionally tangled up as Mathias.
IMHO, read them in order simply to have the back story you need to appreciate where Connelly takes the character. If you meet characters like Eleanor Wish too late in his arc, you won’t have a good sense for the complexity of their relationship (woefully simplified in the Amazon series, my only real complaint about that series BTW). You really have to see Jerry Edgar be Jerry Edgar for a few books to really appreciate how excellently and thoroughly he foils Harry. There’s also something that happens in The Black Ice that remains, 20+ years later, an unspoken sword hanging over Harry’s head.
And if you like Arthurian legend, there’s no better modern take on it than A Darkness More than Night, but you really have to earn that book by reading all the Bosch stories leading up to it plus Blood Work.
You’ll know that you’re through the shake-down phase when you hear Connelly mention Bosch’s “mission” for the first time. That’s when he’s finally got a real handle on who Bosch is.
Good summation, but I have to add - Bosch may be better defined in the later books, but in some ways, he’s still an asshole.
Bosch is the kind of guy that always “knows” the right course of action. And if you don’t agree, you’re on his shit list. But next week, if in a situation with similar circumstances, if Bosch does the opposite of what he did, that now is the the only correct response. And if you do what Bosch did last week, you’re wrong, and on his shit list.
He can’t see that he’s not always right. He won’t acknowledge that other people’s POVs can be just as valid.
I’ve known people like him. Hell, I think I’ve been people like him. First season Sherlock in Elementary was that way. I suspect Connelly is that way, if the way he comes across in Castle is an accurate portrayal. Bosch just happens to also be a good detective. But I bet he never took responsibility in his own mind for getting Harvey Pounds killed.
What are you referring to in The Black Ice?
Harry may be going through some weird shit, but he has lots of good friends - and family - who are always there for him, both physically and emotionally. Plus, he loves his work and he loves kicking ass and taking names. He has no place in this thread.
Parkour!
Harvey Keitel in ‘Bad Lieutenant’.
You’ll note I never disputed that. 
You would lose that bet. It’s revealed in a later novel that he is haunted by that event.
The killing of Cal Moore.