3. The Big Empty by Robert Crais

#20 Elvis Cole and Joe Pike

listened on Audible - purchased

373 pgs. (8:25)

2025
Adult Contemporary Mystery/series
Finished 1/20/2025
Goodreads rating: 4.65
My rating: 5
Setting: southern California

My comments: Interesting, edge-of-your seat story that pretty much had me guessing till the end.  What else can you ask for in a murder mystery procedural?  A protagonist/PI with a sense of humor?  Check.  Interesting, well-flushed out characters?  Check that off, too.  Disturbing murders....unfortunately.  This was a good one.

Goodreads synopsis:  Traci Beller was thirteen when her father disappeared in the sleepy town of Rancha, not far from Los Angeles. The evidence says Tommy Beller abandoned his family, but Traci never believed it. The police couldn't find her dad and neither could the detectives her mother hired, but now, ten years later, Traci is a super-popular influencer with millions of followers and the money to hire a new detective: Elvis Cole.

Taking on a ten-years-cold missing person case is almost always a loser, but Elvis heads to Rancha where he learns an ex-con named Sadie Givens and her daughter, Anya, might have a line on the missing man. But when Elvis finds himself shadowed by a deadly gang of vicious criminals, the simple missing persons case becomes far more sinister and dangerous. Elvis calls in his ex-Marine friend, Joe Pike, to help, but even Pike might not be able to help.

As Elvis Cole and Joe Pike follow Tommy Beller's trail into the twisted, nightmare depths of a monstrous evil, the case flips on its head. Victims become predators, predators become prey, and when everyone is a victim, can Elvis Cole save them all?

In a case that tests Elvis Cole's loyalty to his clients and himself, the truth must come out no matter the cost. Elvis must face The Big Empty and see justice done.

109. Thin Air by Lisa Gray

#1 Jessica Shaw, wandering PI
listened on Audible - have on Kindle, too
narrated by Amy Landon, who was excellent
Unabridged audio (8:44)
2019 Thomas & Mercer
288 pgs.
Adult Mystery, Series
Finished 7/25/2020
Goodreads rating:  3.87 - 39,273 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: contemporary Los Angles area, CA

First line/s: "I park the car four streets away, and walk the rest of the way."

My comments: Jessica discovers herself as a stolen child  when she was three years old.  We start with her discovery of that information.  She had had absolutely no idea.  Her mother had been murdered, herself as a baby gone. Raised in NY, she is now on the road in California, just a year or two after her much-loved father's death.  Of course she jumps into the case, which proves very interesting.  She's pretty smart and tracks down many clues, of course solving it.  She likes to drink and hit the road for the unknown....and that's how the book ends, with her hitting the road for parts unknown.  Sort of a female Jack Reacher, but without all his physical skills (and brilliance, lol).  I'm going to definitely check out other books to come in this series.  Next one is called Bad Memory, with number three coming out in November 2020.

Goodreads synopsis:  She investigates missing persons—now she is one.
           Private investigator Jessica Shaw is used to getting anonymous tips. But after receiving a photo of a three-year-old kidnapped from Los Angeles twenty-five years ago, Jessica is stunned to recognize the little girl as herself.
          Eager for answers, Jessica heads to LA’s dark underbelly. When she learns that her biological mother was killed the night she was abducted, Jessica’s determined to solve a case the police have forgotten. Meanwhile, veteran LAPD detective Jason Pryce is in the midst of a gruesome investigation into a murdered college student moonlighting as a prostitute. A chance encounter leads to them crossing paths, but Jessica soon realizes that Pryce is hiding something about her father’s checkered history and her mother’s death.
           To solve her mother’s murder and her own disappearance, Jessica must dig into the past and find the secrets buried there. But the air gets thinner as she crawls closer to the truth, and it’s getting harder and harder to breathe.

18. The Night Fire by Michael Connelly

#3 Renee Ballard & Harry Bosch
Listened to Audible
narrated by Titus Welliver and Christine Lakin
Unabridged audio (10:04)
2019 Little Brown & Co.
405 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery/Police Procedural
Finished 1/26/2020
Goodreads rating: 4.35 - 18,962 ratings
My rating: 5
Setting: Contemporary LA

First line/s:  "Bosch arrived late and had to park on a cemetery lane far from the grave site."

My comments:  This was an intricately woven series of mysteries stemming from a cold case that Harry Bosch had received from his deceased mentor, and an arson case that Renee Ballard covered on her night shift, as well as some investigative work that Harry completed for his half-brother, Mickey Haller.  Complex but easy to follow, the working relationship and almost affection they have for each other is palpable.  I hate that Harry is pushing 70, but I adore him just as much as I always have.  I love the back-and-forth chapters hearing the voices of both of them.

Goodreads synopsis:  Harry Bosch and LAPD Detective Renee Ballard come together again on the murder case that obsessed Bosch's mentor, the man who trained him -- new from #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly
          Back when Harry Bosch was just a rookie homicide detective, he had an inspiring mentor who taught him to take the work personally and light the fire of relentlessness for every case. Now that mentor, John Jack Thompson, is dead, but after his funeral his widow hands Bosch a murder book that Thompson took with him when he left the LAPD 20 years before -- the unsolved killing of a troubled young man in an alley used for drug deals.
          Bosch brings the murder book to Renée Ballard and asks her to help him find what about the case lit Thompson's fire all those years ago. That will be their starting point.
          The bond between Bosch and Ballard tightens as they become a formidable investigation team. And they soon arrive at a worrying question: Did Thompson steal the murder book to work the case in retirement, or to make sure it never got solved?

32, My Sister's Grave by Robert Dugoni

Tracy Crosswhite #1
read on my iPhone
2014 Thomas & Mercer
416 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery
Finished 6/10/17
Goodreads rating:  3.99 - 53,305 ratings
My rating:  3
Setting: Contemporary mountains of Washington state

First line/s:  "Her tactical instructor at the police academy liked taunting them during early morning drills.  'Sleep is overrated,' he would say.  'You'll learn to do without.'  He lied."

My comments:  Set in a small town where everyone knows and likes your family, throw in a somewhat likable heroine who's lived with 20 years of a mystery that has stilted her life, just for the heck-of-it sprinkle with a sideline of romance with a "perfect" guy and layer on lots of secrets....that's what this book is all about!

Goodreads synopsis:  Tracy Crosswhite has spent twenty years questioning the facts surrounding her sister Sarah’s disappearance and the murder trial that followed. She doesn’t believe that Edmund House — a convicted rapist and the man condemned for Sarah’s murder — is the guilty party. Motivated by the opportunity to obtain real justice, Tracy became a homicide detective with the Seattle PD and dedicated her life to tracking down killers.
          When Sarah’s remains are finally discovered near their hometown in the northern Cascade mountains of Washington State, Tracy is determined to get the answers she’s been seeking. As she searches for the real killer, she unearths dark, long-kept secrets that will forever change her relationship to her past — and open the door to deadly danger.

15. Echo Park by Michael Connelly

Harry Bosch #12
listened to the CD in the car driving home from Maine
2006, Little Brown & Co.
405 pgs.
Adult murder mystery
Finished 3/12/2017
Goodreads rating: 4.06 - 33,087 ratings
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary LA

First line/s: (Part 1, Chapter 1) "The call came in while Harry Bosch and his partner, Kiz Rider, were sitting at their desks in the Open-Unsolved Unit, finishing the paperwork on the Matarase filing."

My comments:  In this segment of Harry Bosch's investigative ups and downs, I saw more cracks and flaws than I'd seen before.  It's not that I disagreed with the morality and/or righteousness of some of Harry's decisions, but I don't quite remember so many of them in previous books.  Admittedly, it's been awhile since I've read Harry, and iI became totally mesmerized, as usual.  Harry's need to make sure the bad guy gets what he deserves is what really stands out in this story.  Many bad guys, a few assumptions that were wrong, and a satisfying ending.  But ... poor Harry is ladyless again.

Goodreads synopsis:  In 1995, Marie Gesto disappeared after walking out of a supermarket in Hollywood. Harry Bosch worked the case but couldn't crack it, and the 22-year-old woman never turned up, dead or alive. Now Bosch is in the Open-Unsolved Unit, where he still keeps the Gesto file on his desk, when he gets a call from the DA. A man accused of two heinous killings is willing to come clean about several other murders, including the killing of Marie Gesto. 
          Bosch must now take Raynard Waits's confession and get close to the man he has sought - and hated - for eleven years. But when Bosch learns that he and his partner missed a clue back in 1995 that could have led them to Gesto's killer - and that would have stopped nine murders that followed - he begins to crack.

20. The Closers - Michael Connelly

Harry Bosch #11

Audio read by Len Carriou

10 Unabridged cds

2005 Hachette Audio

432 pgs.

Adult Murder Mystery

Finished 3/8/2015

Goodreads rating:  4.00

My rating:  5

My comments:  Harry Bosch returns to the LAPD and is partnered with one of his previous partners, Kiz Rider. The beginning of the story seemed to drag a bit - there was no action because the facts of a 17-year old cold case were being disclosed to Harry and Kiz.  But as they begin to dig into old facts and look into new clues, the story becomes more-than-interesting, with a few twists and turns and a great deal to think about.  Michael Connelly sure seems to know the ins and outs and dirty laundry of a big city police department!

Goodreads book summary:  He walked away from the job three years ago. But Harry Bosch cannot resist the call to join the elite Open/Unsolved Unit. His mission: solve murders whose investigations were flawed, stalled, or abandoned to L.A.'s tides of crime. With some people openly rooting for his failure, Harry catches the case of a teenager dragged off to her death on Oat Mountain, and traces the DNA on the murder weapon to a small-time criminal. But something bigger and darker beckons, and Harry must battle to fit all the pieces together. Shaking cages and rattling ghosts, he will push the rules to the limit--and expose the kind of truth that shatters lives, ends careers, and keeps the dead whispering in the night...