The Black Box by Michael Connelly

The Black Box is Michael Connelly’s latest police procedural featuring his beloved Harry Bosch character.  Even after 20 years, Connelly skillfully keeps the formula fresh delivering on yet another compelling thriller.

Bosch is long past retirement age for a police detective but his reputation for closing cases has landed him in the Open Unsolved Unit of the LAPD working under the Deferred Retirement Option Plan with a 5 year contract.  His current cold case dates back to 1992 during the LA Rodney King riots when a Danish reporter, Anneke Jespersen is found dead in an alley by a National Guardsman.  Coincidently, Harry and his partner were called to investigate at the time of the murder but were pulled off the case before any serious police work could take place.  Bosch did retrieve a 9 mm shell casing at the crime scene. The case is dubbed ‘Snow White’ and LA politics prevent any seemingly undue priority on solving the murder of a white girl during a racial riot.

Twenty years later these political concerns are still alive and well but Bosch’s tenacity and personal sense of right and wrong never allows politics to interfere with getting his man.  Bosch’s latest intradepartmental rival is his ambitious boss, Lieutenant O’Toole—aka ‘O’Fool’ and ‘The Tool’ by those under his command.  Bosch reopens the ‘Snow White’ case and heads to San Quentin to interview a witness now serving time.  The witness, a gang member, connects the shell casing from the 'Snow White' crime scene to later gang related murders and that ultimately leads to the discovery of the murder weapon.  After the interview, Bosch has time to kill before his return flight and he asks to visit with his girl friend’s son also an inmate at San Quentin.  O’Toole learns of the unauthorized visit and calls in PSD (modern version of internal affairs) to investigate Bosch for his personal use of city resources. ‘O’Fool’ tells him, "You are the worst kind of police officer, Bosch. You are arrogant, a bully, and you think the laws and regulations don't apply to you."  Bosch views the PSD investigation as an annoyance keeping him from devoting full time to his case just as momentum is building.

 

The 'Snow White' investigation becomes white hot when Bosch traces the murder weapon back to the first Gulf War and he finds the National Guard unit deployed in 1992 to the LA riots also served in Kuwait at the same time Anneke Jespersen was reporting there.  Bosch takes a week’s leave, asks his girl friend, Hannah to stay in his home with his teenage daughter, Maddie, and heads to Modesto, home of the 1992 National Guard unit…unassisted…no backup…adrenaline starting to pump.

The Black Box is vintage Connelly and classic Harry Bosch.  Bosch is as stubborn and relentless as he was in the beginning.  His total disregard for authority and hyper-focus on solving the case have you cheering him on and quickly flipping pages…disappointed only because it has to end.