BUZZ BOOKS

A crime tale

with its own soundtrack

The Mystery Bookstore, the oldest independent mystery bookstore in Los Angeles, sits in the middle of a row of Westwood Village businesses. The store’s interior is a celebration of rare, collectible and new crime fiction.

With its gently lighted floor-to-ceiling rows of books, on shelves that cut at odd angles and leave deep shadows in some corners, Mystery Books would seem the perfect setting for a murder ... or at least for listening to a tale of one.

On a drizzly evening not long ago, the store was the

setting for author Michael Connelly reading from

his latest book, “Lost Light,” another chapter in the life of detective Harry Bosch.

Anxious fans drew lots to see who would get the best spots inside.

Connelly, as he has throughout his current tour, read the first chapter of “Light,” which begins: “There is no end of things in the heart.”

In addition to words, this latest in the Bosch series comes with a CD of music that often turns up being played by the jazz-loving detective.

The compilation of jazz classics -- tunes from Frank Morgan, John Coltrane, Art Pepper, Clifford Brown and others -- accompanies the purchase of “Light” and was produced, in part, by Connelly’s sister Jane Davis.

“I think the music he listens to says a lot about him,” Connelly writes in the liner notes on “Dark Sacred Night,” the music of Harry Bosch.

Later, waiting in line for a signed copy was actress Britt Eklund. As Connelly reached to sign her book, Eklund set her teacup Chihuahua on the table.

As to who was the bigger Connelly fan -- well, that remained a mystery.

*

Poetry pulled from the news

Antonieta Villamil, a contributor to the CD spoken word anthology “Raza Spoken Here 2” from Calaca Press, was organizer and emcee of the Maraton de Poesia Contra la Guerra en Irak over the weekend at Bohemia Books.

But the anthology, published before the war, wasn’t the only source of the evening’s verse. The offerings alternated between cuts from the CD and verse rendered straight out of today’s headlines.

The event took no prisoners -- bystanders were required to find a poem from the bookstore’s shelves and read. Even Francoise-Aline Blain, a tourist from France, happily cooperated. She found a verse and read it in French.

-- Carolyn Patricia Scott