The Pallbearers by Stephen J. Cannell

The Pallbearers by Stephen J. Cannell features his protagonist Shane Scully.  I've read several Shane Scully novels.  He's an L.A. homicide cop who grew up as an orphan and still tries to deal with some of his anger issues.  The novels tend to be fast moving and have a bit of a mystery to them.


I'd recommend them for people waiting for the next Harry Bosch novel.  Although if pressed, Id admit that I prefer Michael Connelly's writing style, the characters are fairly similar and the novels have a similar feel to them.  That being said, I don't tend to confuse the plots of Michael Connelly and Stephen J. Cannell, I think because Shane Scully is a little more action focused than mystery centric. 


I've written before about the commonality of Los Angeles locations in crime fiction. 
Read While Walking: L.A. in Fiction
Mr. Cannell is another author who hits many of the same places as those identified by Michael Connelly and Robert Crais.  Shane takes the CSI guy to breakfast at the Pacific Dining Car (though, in a touch of realism, Shane is more concerned about the cost of breakfast at this restaurant than Harry Bosch tends to be).  I really enjoy the descriptions of Venice Beach in the Shane Scully novels, and it's clear Mr. Cannell loves the area.  Although Shane develops over the course of the series, there are no major spoilers if you start with The Pallbearers (one of the later entries in the series), and in my view it is a pretty good place to start.


In The Pallbearers, Shane and some other folks who grew up in the same children's home are called back to be pallbearers for the man who ran the home, and incidentally decide to delve into some of the mystery surrounding his last days and death.  Mr. Cannell works in a lot of surfer lingo and the importance of surfing.  I'm not sure it entirely works for me, though mostly because I don't picture Shane Scully as a surfing kind of guy and I don't recall any mention in the earlier novels of any interest or knowledge of surfing.


Shane does his rogue thing, and blusters around and deals with some of his anger.  I don't mean to say it dismissively, though it's something Shane often deals with.  I found it particularly affecting in this novel however, perhaps because of how his anger is intertwined with his grief and how he manages to work through the loss of a father figure. 


I always tend to wish Alexa's role could be fleshed out a little more.  She helps in the plot, but the novel is all about Shane.  It works though, since his involvement with his grief means he's more internally focused and perhaps less engaged with his wife and son.  Although I generally enjoy the Shane Scully novels, and find them a lot of fun, this one I also found to be moving.  As such I'd put it near the top of my list of Stephen J. Cannell books.