#1493. Desert Star by Michael Connelly

Desert Star by Michael Connelly is his latest book, most of which have been reviewed in this blog. We are fans of his writing. This is the fifth in the series of five books about Renee Ballard and Harry Bosch, and their attempts to solve murders. The set up for this story begins a year after Ballard quit the LAPD detectives in the face of numerous problems with the department. However, Ballard was a skilled detective that the department needed. Now there’s a new police chief who offered Ballard a deal she could not pass up – she could rebuild the cold case unit in the elite Robbery Homicide Division. The reopening was essentially sponsored by a councilman whose 16-year-old sister had been a murder victim of a crime that had never been solved. 

 

Meanwhile, although he had already retired, Bosch was still bothered by the unsolved case of the murder of a family. Bosch had continued to try to solve the case on his own, but he needed the tools of the LAPD to really pursue the matter, and Ballard offered him the chance to do that. However, with the political pressure of the councilman, Ballard was forced to get Bosch to work on that case, too. Bosch did not like that at all, but when Ballard got a “cold hit,” which connected the death of the sister to a similar crime, indicating that a a psychopathic killer had been at work in LA for years, Bosch got busy with that case, too. So, there were two murderers that Bosch and Ballard were pursuing.

 

The reader of Desert Star delivers what we’ve come to expect from Connelly – a great crime novel. Strong characters surround the main character, and rich dialogue ensues. It should not be a surprise that I give this one a 5-star rating. However, Connelly leaves us with the possibility that this could be the final Bosch novel, although Ballard and Bosch’s daughter Maddy (who is working her way up in the LAPD), are available subjects for Connelly to write about, and I hope he does.

 

West Coast Don