Bosch, Ballard in fine form in Connelly’s latest

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/01/2023 (717 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Like every fictional homicide detective, Harry Bosch is haunted by the murder he never solved. Make that murders — a mother and father, their two little kids, all vanished until their bodies were found buried in the California desert years later.

This was back when Bosch was at the height of his career as a Los Angeles cop who couldn’t get along with anyone in authority in the LAPD or its political overseers, but survived because of his extraordinary record of closing cases with a conviction.

Bosch believes he knows who murdered the family, but that suspect had done a runner before the bodies were found, and has never been charged.

Bosch has been officially retired for a fair number of books now, but his head is still in the game, and when detective Renee Ballard shows up to offer him a job at the new cold case unit she heads, Bosch is back.

There’s a catch, Ballard tells Bosch — he can pursue the murdered family case, but the priority is a cold case murder of a 16-year-old girl whose brother is now the city councillor instrumental in setting up the cold case unit. Hm, you’re saying, murder mysteries hate coincidences, but it’s no secret, the councillor cashed his political capital for personal reasons and expects his sister’s murderer to be brought to justice.

Desert Star is American author Michael Connelly’s 37th murder mystery, and it’s one of his best police procedurals in years.

Ballard, Connelly fans will recall, was demoted and banished to the overnight shift after reporting her boss for sexually assaulting her. Things have changed; Ballard no longer lives in a tent on the beach with her dog, rarely has time to spend her days surfing.

It’s hardly a spoiler that cold case murder mysteries have a pretty high rate of reopening serious investigations — our heroes soon spot something the original investigators missed, add marvellous technological advances unavailable back in the day, a trace of DNA in a dusty old evidence bag, a drop of blood absorbed in a swab and stored for decades, and off we go.

Connelly has such a way of telling a story. He has always made L.A. a living, breathing creature, he’s made its freeways exotic, even the most minor of characters is so complete.

Does Bosch ignore the rules and go off on his own? Are there suspects who may not be guilty? Are there (gasp) people lying about their pasts? Are their traitors and planted snitches among Ballard’s crew? You think you’re going to find out here?

Bosch has always been very much like Sir Ian Rankin’s John Rebus. OK, Rebus didn’t have a gun, and Edinburgh doesn’t have freeways, but the men are so similar, and both exceptional authors have had to get incredibly inventive when they acknowledged how old their protagonists were getting and retired them, then got hounded by hordes of readers to keep Harry and John going.

Desert Star is outstanding stuff. Keep them coming, Michael.

Retired Free Press reporter Nick Martin can be easily led by authors who contend that old people still have considerable mojo.