Review by Cristina Bruno
Author: Michael Connelly
Publisher: Orion
Literary genre: crime novel
Pages: 480
Publication year: 2018
Sinopsis. Harry Bosch works cold cases, helping out the under-funded San Fernando police department. When a double murder at a local pharmacy is called in, Bosch is the most seasoned detective on the scene. But with experience, come the ghosts of long-forgotten crimes. A death row inmate claims Bosch framed him, and that new DNA evidence proves it. The LAPD investigators say the case is watertight, leaving Bosch out in the wilderness to clear his name and keep a sadistic killer behind bars. There’s only one person he can trust to help prove his innocence: Micky Haller, The Lincoln Lawyer…
Review
Harry Bosh is sitting at his desk, inside a little disused cell that became his office in San Fernando’s Police Department. After he had left the Open-Unsolved Unit in L.A. he continued his work there, with his usual obstinacy to search nameless guilty or missing people, just like Esmeralda Tavares, a young mother vanished into thin air fifteen years ago. He is rereading old documents, hoping to find ideas for new paths of investigation, when Lucia Soto arrives.
It is an unexpected visit. Lucia was his former working partner when he was at LAPD. But the visit isn’t a courtesy one, as Bosh soon understands, looking at the two colleagues who accompany her. The past is returning and it forces Bosh to defend himself from an absurd accusation. They claim he falsified evidence in a murder case of thirty years ago.
The rage of Bosh is great for two distinct reasons: he doesn’t want that Preston Border, the murderer, can get out from Death Row, and in addition he is disappointed that Lucia and the colleagues doubt of his professional correctness. How can he disprove the false accusation? The lawyer Mike Heller, Bosh’s half–brother, takes the task of helping him both with investigative and procedural side.
Meanwhile a murder happens, or rather the execution, of two apothecaries. So Bosh keeps going deeper in the dangerous world of drug dealing managed by Russian and local mafia. Bosh will accept to infiltrate himself in the criminal organization to find the truth. Finding the evidence will be a very dangerous job…
As usual Connelly is able to keep glued the reader to the story. He continues in parallel two different cases, actually three if we count Esmeralda’s one, without never losing the thread.
The Harry Bosh character reserves always new surprises and new sides to discover. As with an old friend, the more time passes the more likely you know and appreciate him. We find his home with the beautiful terrace overlooking the Cahuenga Pass, his daughter now attending College, his old colleagues as Lucia or Edgar.
All the professional experience of Harry is being questioned and he puts on the scale the two sides of the truth according to him: one is about honesty and coherence both in life and in pursuing a mission and the other is the behavior of politicians and corrupted only pursuing a carrier, at any cost.
The style is lean and precise, as it made us used. It goes straight to the heart and to the stomach of reader. His descriptions of L.A. and of the characters are artistic pages, to taste like a fine vintage wine.
The expert crime reporter emerges in the actuality of the story about the investigation on drug dealing. He shines a light on opioid crisis that is becoming a real social case in USA, because itcaused and continues to cause thousands of deaths.
Finally, Connelly a name, a certainty.
Edited by Cristina Bruno
http://fabulaeintreccio.blogspot.com/
Michael Connelly
is the author of thirty-four previous novels, including the #1 New York Times bestsellers Dark Sacred Night, Two Kinds of Truth, and The Late Show. His books, which include the Harry Bosch series and the Lincoln Lawyer series, have sold more than eighty million copies worldwide. Connelly is a former newspaper reporter who has won numerous awards for his journalism and his novels. He is the executive producer of Bosch, starring Titus Welliver, and the creator and host of the podcast Murder Book. He spends his time in California and Florida.
