Starred review from September 28, 2015
In bestseller Connelly’s masterly 20th Harry Bosch novel (after 2014’s The Burning Room), former gang member Da’Quan Foster, a client of Bosch’s half-brother, DA Mickey Haller, awaits trial for a rape and murder. The case appears to be a slam dunk for the prosecution, with Foster’s DNA found at the crime scene, but Haller, who’s convinced it’s a setup, persuades Bosch, a retired homicide cop, to help prove his client’s innocence. With assistance from his former LAPD partner, Lucia Soto, Bosch does some digging and finds some interesting links among a prostitution ring, Internet pornography, and a very expensive wristwatch. Drawing on his 30 years of experience and instinct, Bosch as usual investigates things his way, even when the case may lead inside the police department. Indeed, the notion of crossing resonates on different levels—the intersection of predator and prey, cops gone rogue, and for Bosch, the transition from one part of his life into something exciting and new. Agent: Philip Spitzer, Philip G. Spitzer Literary.
October 15, 2015
Harry Bosch goes to work for the Lincoln lawyer. There's no reason why brothers can't work together, even if they're only half brothers--unless one of them put in nearly 30 years at LAPD Robbery-Homicide before a suspension that led to retirement and the other works night and day to get crime suspects released. And defense attorney Mickey Haller can really use his half brother's help finding evidence that will back up his longtime client Da'Quan "DQ" Foster's claim that he didn't assault West Hollywood assistant city manager Lexi Parks in her home and beat her to death, because Bosch's former colleagues have damning DNA evidence DQ can't explain that links him directly to the victim, and a hit-and-run accident has sidelined Dennis "Cisco" Wojciechowski, Haller's regular investigator. Bosch (The Burning Room, 2014, etc.) has a million reasons not to cross over "to the other side of the aisle," but step by step, fearful that the real killer is still out there, he finds himself drawn into the case despite his reservations. The news that his alibi witness was murdered shortly after DQ was arrested both deepens his plight and makes his story more plausible, for Bosch if not for the cops, and he spends some time examining a couple of unhelpfully clean-swept crime scenes before he gets a hunch that the key to the case is a pricey Audemars Piguet watch that Lexi Parks sent off to be repaired and never picked up--and that the killer he's looking for is actually a pair of killers. The deeper he digs, the more reasons he finds to regret having crossed to Haller's dark side and the more reasons to be skeptical, even fearful, of the LAPD. Solid, unspectacular, utterly engrossing work from the reigning master of the police procedural.
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Starred review from October 15, 2015
Harry Bosch has been forced into retirement by his enemies within the LAPD, and he's not taking it well. As he sits in his house in the Hollywood Hills and looks down at the traffic, the slow moving river of steel and light, he knows that's where he belongs. His half-brother, lawyer Mickey Haller, star of Connelly's parallel series, offers Harry a way back into the game, but it comes at a high price: working for a defense lawyer after a career as a cop means going over to the dark side. Reluctantly, Bosch agrees to investigate the case against a former gang-banger seemingly turned straight, whose DNA was found on and in the body of a high-profile woman murdered in her bed. If Harry finds evidence suggesting the accused is guilty, he goes to the cops, mitigating somewhat the dark-side worries. What follows is a tour de force of criminal detection. Connelly painstakingly and brilliantly shows Bosch slogging after the truth, eventually recognizing that an expensive watch that the victim attempted to get repaired somehow holds the key to the case and then following this wispy filament of a lead on a circuitous path to the killers But the appeal here isn't all cerebral; the novel concludes with a stunning, bullets-flying set piece in which careful investigation turns suddenly to intense action, almost like a nuclear physicist's blackboard formulas exploding into atomic bombs. As always, Connelly's blackboard work is as precise as his finale is exciting. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: With the popular and critically acclaimed TV series Bosch adding to Connelly's celebrity, his total-copies-sold figure of more than 60 million will soon need to recalculated, yet again.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)
June 1, 2015
Never mind that Det. Harry Bosch has retired from the LAPD. His half-brother, defense attorney Mickey Haller, wants his help in clearing a client of murder. Soon, bullets are flying his way. Last year's The Burning Room stayed longer on the New York Times best sellers list than any other Connelly novel; with a 550,000-copy first printing.
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