Wow! Although I got in on the game a bit late, I’ve followed Harry Bosch series since Book 1. As usual I started in at Book 3 or 4 and skipped around until I decided to go back to Book 1. That was in about 1998 or so. It occasionally took a year or two to get to the next book, but I did it. I may be missing one or two, but I’ve got 20 Connellys in my Audible library plus the latest one on my wish list. That’s his total in the Harry Bosch series. That said, I have some books which are by Connelly, but not in the Harry Bosch series. (I know I’ve got at least a couple of the Mickey Haller series books.) I’d have to do some serious sorting to find the ones I’m missing from the Harry Bosch series.

I wasn’t too happy when Connelly added Rene Ballard to the series protagonists. She seemed awkward and clumsily developed at a first. But now in her third book this sharp, loner woman detective is great and with Bosch playing a retired cop doing part time work in the cop-shop, the series works just as well as ever.

*******
Dark Sacred Night
by Michael Connelly
2018 / 449 pages
read by Christine Lakin, Titus Welliver
Rating: A / crime procedural
*******

Also, this book ties into the last two books in other ways related to the plot so it’s good to read them in order, although not really necessary. It just makes it more interesting to know a wee bit about the crime which was committed 9 years prior.

This book ties into the last two books in other ways related to the plot so it’s good to read them in order, although not really necessary. It just makes it more interesting to know a wee bit about the crime which was committed 9 years prior.

Yes, Harry is still investigating the brutal death of Daisy Clayton, a 15-year old runaway whose body was left naked in a trash dumpster. Her mother, Elizabeth Clayton, has been very much a presence in the last couple books.

Harry Bosch, the protagonist, is a dark kind of character, a loner cop who is divorced (and his ex- was murdered) with one child, Maddie, who is now away at college (Maddie has grown up in the last several books.) Rene Ballard is not quite as dark, but she’s alone too, except for a grandmother somewhere in the L.A. area. She has a dog and boyfriend of sorts and works out at the gym.

The tension is expertly drawn out and the actual graphic violence is there but not overly so. There are plenty of victims – mostly female. The focus in the Bosch novels is on the procedures. Bosch somehow doesn’t think they have to apply to him while Ballard is not as temperamental (hot-headed and proud) as Bosch, but does her own thing when she deems it necessary. They’re a good match.