Nightshade

 

Michael Connelly has written about 40 novels and Nightshade is unrelated to the Bosch series of 24 books and the Lincoln Lawyer series of 7 books, etc. Men Reading Books has reviewed nearly all of Connelly’s work. None of the usual characters were mentioned in this story. A new protagonist has been introduced, Detective Stillwell who has been assigned to Catalina Island for the last year. Catalina is 22 miles offshore from Los Angeles. He had been sent to Catalina as punishment for his behavior in a murder investigation in Long Beach when he knew a compatriot Detective Ahern (fondly referred to by his associates as A-Hole) had cut corners on a case and wrongfully got an old buddy freed of charges. Stillwell (who A-Hold referred to as Stillborn) was enraged, but he made a mistake in the way he addressed the problem and his contentions about A-Hole were not supported. So, he found himself out of the limelight and in a position on Catalina that typically was not a place where one could ever get promoted. He was ordered to keep his investigation and any police activities confined to the island and to do no such detective work on the main land.

 

Connelly presented Catalina as the quiet and beautiful idyllic place that it is. Rather than hating this assignment, Stillwell found himself to be quite happy with the style of life there. Little happened during the weekdays, and the island tended to fill up with tourists for the weekend when drunks was the most interesting work for  the police. It was also a haven for the wealthy who built weekend palatial homes there. The wealthy arrived in their yachts and often belonged to the exclusive Black Marlin Club.

 

This was a story of the huge gap between the lifestyle of the very rich and that of people who had a more typical income. There were also people with little income who simply came to the remote areas of the island to avoid other people for one reason or another. There was a cast of people who either lived there or arrived on weekends to service the wealthy ones.

 

There were three crimes that occurred that resulted in Stillwell having to once again associate with A-Hole and the other officers who saw Stillwell as an outsider. The first crime was the murder of a Buffalo which roam about the mostly deserted island. The second had to do with the seemingly unprovoked assault of one of Stillwell’s deputies when a bar patron hit the unsuspecting deputy over the head with a wine bottle. The third crime had to do with the murder of a waitress from the Black Marlin Club who had been on gold digging activities with the male members. Her body was found wrapped around an anchor on the floor of the Avalon Harbor. Meanwhile, Stillwell began a romance with a native of the island, Tash (short for Natasha), and we learned about the other typical social activities that went on for the locals.

 

I thought this was an engaging novel. As Bosch essentially aged out as being a great protagonist, we now have a new honest and determined detective who is unwilling to let crimes go unsolved and criminals go unpunished. Connelly has done it again and I hope to read more of Detective Stillwell.