33. Nightshade by Michael Connelly

#1 Det. Stilwel, Catalina Island, CA

listened on Libby

345 pgs.

2025
Adult Murder Mystery
Finished 7/14/2025
Goodreads rating: 4.16
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporary Catalina Island, California

My comments: A new character and a new setting for Michael Connelly!  "Stil" is a detective on Catalina Island, which looks like its main offices are in Long Beach (not LA).  He's been sent there for unwarranted reasons, all the cops they want to "get rid of" are sent there.  He's got a girlfriend and has come to very much like living and working on the island.  Then all sorts of you-know-what hits the fan.  Robberies, beheadings of protected wildlife, murder....and more.  A HUGE variety of partially related problems that keep him on his toes.  He's smart and he's good at what he does, although he's pretty abrasive.  I'm not sure if I 100% like him, so I'm looking forward (already!) to the next in the series so I can form a better opinion.

Goodreads synopsis:  #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly introduces a new cop relentlessly following his mission in the seemingly idyllic setting of Catalina island.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Detective Stilwell has been “exiled” to a low-key post policing rustic Catalina Island, after department politics drove him off a homicide desk on the mainland. But while following up the usual drunk-and-disorderlies and petty thefts that come with his new territory, Detective Stilwell gets a report of a body found weighed down at the bottom of the harbor—a Jane Doe identifiable at first only by a streak of purple dye in her hair. At the same time, a report of poaching on a protected reserve turns into a case fraught with violence and danger as Stilwell digs into the shady past of an island bigwig.

Crossing all lines of protocol and jurisdiction, Stilwell doggedly works both cases. Though hampered by an old beef with an ex-colleague determined to thwart him at every turn, he is convinced he is the only one who can bring justice to the woman known as “Nightshade.” Soon, his investigation uncovers closely guarded secrets and a dark heart to the serene island that was meant to be his escape from the evils of the big city.

82. The Waiting by Michael Connelly

Ballard & Bosch #6

listened on Audible (purchased)

407 pgs.

2024
Adult Mystery
Finished 12/8/2024
Goodreads rating: 4.47
My rating: 5
Setting: LA and vicinity, contemporary

My comments: The Cold Case Unit in LA, headed by Renee Ballard - Connelly spent the 6th in the series about this LA police detective working on three major cases.  They're all intricate and edge-of-your-seat fascinating.  Renee and Harry have become very close friends, having similar thoughts, feeling, and reactions to many things.  What was wonderfully great for me sas that Maddie Bosch is part of this book! (Why is her relationship with her father so strained? and almost secretive?)  This was a really good one!

Goodreads synopsis:  LAPD Detective Renée Ballard tracks a terrifying serial rapist whose trail has gone cold, with the help of the newest volunteer to the Open-Unsolved Unit: Patrol Officer Maddie Bosch, Harry’s daughter.

Renée Ballard and the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit get a hot shot DNA connection between a recently arrested man and a serial rapist and murderer who went quiet twenty years ago. The arrested man is only twenty-three, so the genetic link must be familial. It is his father who was the Pillowcase Rapist, responsible for a five-year reign of terror in the city of angels. But when Ballard and her team move in on their suspect, they encounter a baffling web of secrets and legal hurdles.

Meanwhile, Ballard’s badge, gun, and ID are stolen—a theft she can’t report without giving her enemies in the department the ammunition they need to end her career as a detective. She works the burglary alone, but her solo mission leads her into greater danger than she anticipates. She has no choice but to go outside the department for help, and that leads her to the door of Harry Bosch.

Finally, Ballard takes on a new volunteer to the cold case unit. Bosch’s daughter Maddie wants to supplement her work as a patrol officer on the night beat by investigating cases with Ballard. But Renée soon learns that Maddie has an ulterior motive for getting access to the city’s library of lost souls.

111. The Dark Hours - Michael Connelly

#4 Renee Ballard/#23 Harry Bosch

listened on Audible

2021
400 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery/Police Procedural
Finished 12/10/2021
Goodreads rating: 4.51
My rating: 5
Setting: Contemporary LA

My comments: Two mysteries keep Renee Ballard busy with the help of Harry Bosch.  Both are super intuitive and puzzle solvers.  One of the cases is about a bad cop, now retired, who is a hitman of sorts; and the other is about two guys who are serial rapists.  Renee even gets a teeny tiny bit of a love interest in this one, and an apartment!  It was so excellent!

Goodreads synopsis:   Has a killer lain dormant for years only to strike again on New Year’s Eve? LAPD Detective Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch team up to find justice for an innocent victim in the new thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly

There's chaos in Hollywood on New Year's Eve. Working her graveyard shift, LAPD Detective Renée Ballard seeks shelter at the end of the countdown to wait out the traditional rain of lead as hundreds of revelers shoot their guns into the air. As reports start to roll in of shattered windshields and other damage, Ballard is called to a scene where a hardworking auto shop owner has been fatally hit by a bullet in the middle of a crowded street party.

It doesn't take long for Ballard to determine that the deadly bullet could not have fallen from the sky. Ballard’s investigation leads her to look into another unsolved murder—a case at one time worked by Detective Harry Bosch.

Ballard and Bosch team up once again to find out where the old and new cases intersect. All the while they must look over their shoulders. The killer who has stayed undetected for so long knows they are coming after him

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?

56. The Late Show by Michael Connelly

#1 Renee Ballard, LA Police Detective
listened on Audible
2017, Little Brown  Co.
405 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery/Police Procedural
Finished 9/7/2017
Goodreads rating:  4.06
My rating:  4
Setting:  Contemporary LA

First line/s:  "Ballard and Jenikins rolled up on the house on El Centro shortly before midnight."

My comments:  Renee Ballard is a smart, aggressive, bend-the-rules detective in the Los Angeles police department.  I can't say I really liked her, but I think it's the way that the reader's voice gave her personality - or lack thereof.  Much of it was read in a monotone.  If I'd been reading it myself I would've definitely put different stresses to the words and I think it would've changed Renee's personality for me completely.  The cases were cleverly conceived by Mr. Connelly and incredibly captivating.  Excellent characters, interesting lifestyle for the protagonist, super setting.  I only drove around LA twice, but I can see it in my head as he describes it.  Yes, a good murder mystery of which there will hopefully be more.

Goodreads synopsis: From #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly, a new thriller introducing a driven young detective trying to prove herself in the LAPD
          Renée Ballard works the night shift in Hollywood, beginning many investigations but finishing none as each morning she turns her cases over to day shift detectives. A once up-and-coming detective, she's been given this beat as punishment after filing a sexual harassment complaint against a supervisor.
          But one night she catches two cases she doesn't want to part with: the brutal beating of a prostitute left for dead in a parking lot and the killing of a young woman in a nightclub shooting. Ballard is determined not to give up at dawn. Against orders and her own partner's wishes, she works both cases by day while maintaining her shift by night. As the cases entwine they pull her closer to her own demons and the reason she won't give up her job no matter what the department throws at her.

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...

44. The Narrows - Michael Connelly

#10 Harry Bosch

Audio read by Len Cariou
9 unabridged cds (10:00)

2004 Time Warner Audio Books

427 pgs.

Adult Murder Mystery

Finished 7/25/2014

Goodreads Rating:  4.01

My Rating:  3/ It was okay

Amelia Given Library,, Mt. Holly Springs

Setting: Contemporary LA & Las Vegas

1^st sentence/s:  "I think maybe I know only one thing in this world. One thing for sure.  And that is that the truth does not set you free."

My comments:  I read this without reading The Poet first, but have read every other Harry Bosch, in order.  I could figure out what was going on with this "past case" very quickly, but will admit that it would have been nice to have read The Poet first, thus having all the background.  I love the character of Harry Bosch.  I've loved every one of the books so far, but this one was a little (tiny, tiny) bit disappointing --- and I'm not sure why.  Perhaps I've read the previous books and listened to this one, which made it different? It brings together THREE different books, including Terry McCaleb and bounces back and forth between points-of-view, not just Harry's?

Nice Harry Bosch quote:  "There is nothing like being wanted or being welcomed, being valued."

Goodreads Review:  FBI agent Rachel Walling finally gets the call she's dreaded for years, the one that tells her the Poet has surfaced. She has never forgotten the serial killer who wove lines of poetry in his hideous crimes--and apparently he has not forgotten her.
Former LAPD detective Harry Bosch gets a call, too--from the widow of an old friend. Her husband's death seems natural, but his ties to the hunt for the Poet make Bosch dig deep. Arriving at a derelict spot in the California desert where the feds are unearthing bodies, Bosch joins forces with Rachel. Now the two are at odds with the FBI...and squarely in the path of the Poet, who will lead them on a wicked ride out of the heat, through the narrows of evil, and into a darkness all his own..

36. Lost Light - Michael Connelly

#9 Harry Bosch
audio read by Len Cariou

Listened on my iPhone through Overdrive/TPPL download

9 discs/parts

2004

416 pgs.

Finished 6/11/14 in my cozy PA apartment

Adult murder mystery

Goodreads Rating: 4.09

My Rating: 4.5 Loved it

Acquired: TPPL Overdrive Audio

Setting: LA and Vegas

1^st sentence/s:  "There is no end of things in the heart.  Somebody once told me that."

My comments: Harry Bosch #9 did not disappoint.  This time he's no longer on the LAPD homicide squad, he's out on his own.  Although Virgil Flowers has overtaken Harry as my favorite protagonist, I'm still a total Harry Bosch fan.  I've got the next one on reserve!

Goodreads Review:  The vision has haunted him for four years--a young woman lying crumpled in death, her hand outstretched in silent supplication. Harry Bosch was taken off the Angella Benton murder case when the production assistant's death was linked with the violent theft of two million dollars from a movie set. Both files were never closed. Now retired from the L.A.P.D., Bosch is determined to find justice for Angella. Without a badge to open doors and strike fear into the guilty, he's on his own. And even in the face of an opponent more powerful and ruthless than any he's ever encountered, Bosch is not backing down.

56. City of Bones - Michael Connelly

#8 Harry Bosch

Listened to using OverDrive on my phone, borrowed from the library

2002

408 pgs.

Adult series murder mystery

Finished 

Goodreads Rating: 3.95 (over 14,000 ratings)

My Rating: 4.5 (it was really, really good)

Setting: Contemporary LA

My comments: 4.5 This is the second CITY OF BONES titled book I've ready recently - very different from the first.  I haven't read a Harry Bosch in quite awhile, so it was a real treat.  To listen to the story on the monotonous trip from Mount Holly Springs to Trenton made the trip fly by.  The stories and characters - both good and bad - were intriguing.  The reader was great, but the added musical accompaniment drove me crazy. Yuck.  And the ending!  SPOILER-SPOILER - Harry gets the chance to return to his previous, more prestigious job...and he quits the force completely!  Now I can't wait to read the next installment.

Goodreads:  Detective Harry Bosch tears open a 20-year-old murder case - with an explosive ending that leave all Bosch fans hungrily awaiting the next instalment.

When the bones of a twelve-year-old boy are found scattered in the Hollywood Hills, Harry Bosch is drawn into a case that brings up the darkest memories from his own haunted past. The bones have been buried for years, but the cold case doesn't deter Bosch. Unearthing hidden stories, he finds the child's identity and reconstructs his fractured life, determined that he not be forgotten.

At the same time, a new love affair with a female cop begins to blossom for Bosch - until a stunningly blown mission leaves him in more trouble than ever before in his turbulent career. The investigation races to a shocking conclusion and leaves Bosch on the brink of an unimaginable decision.

45. Chasing the Dime - Michael Connelly

Audiobook read by Jonathan Davis
8 cassettes/ 10.5 hours
Unabridged
Published 2002
Adult Murder Mystery
pbk 448 pgs.
Rating: 3.5

This wasn't a Harry Bosch mystery. I found it on cassette, cheap, at Bookmans, so I've been listening to it when I've been swimming, cassette recorder propped up beside the pool, trying to have it loud enough so that I can splash and swim and still hear it while not allowing any neighbors to hear it. Since it's about a dead prostitute and a website where her ads can be found - well, I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea about me....

Henry Pierce is a computer gee, who has created a cutting-edge business that is about to crack open the computerbiochip field. His girlfriend, Nicole, has broken up with him, so he has forlornly found an apartment in LA along with everything that comes with a move, including a new cell phone (now that I think of it, why wouldn't you keep your old cell number?) Oh well...this is where the mystery starts, because he keeps getting calls for "Lily" on his cellphone. Henry is curious and starts checking around, asking questions....Lily has disappeared. No one will answer many questions. He doesn't let it go, no matter how much trouble he gets into. And he digs himself in deeper and deeper until it looks like there's no way to get out - HE's going to be charged with her murder.

Many twists and turns later we come to a somewhat satisfying ending....or at least, all the questions seem to be answered. Even the questions that haunted me the most as I floated around the pool, why did he keep digging? Why didn't he get someone who knew what they were doing to help? Why was he so obsessed with these girls? Even that is answered. A few of the characters, especially his ex-girlfriend and his new assistant, didn't seem real, weren't developed enough for me. But it had a good intricate plot, which I love about Connelly. However, there's something about Harry Bosch that I couldn't find in Henry Pierce. Oh well, it's not a series, it's a stand-alone.

8. Blood Work - Michael Connelly

AUDIO Read by Dick Hill
For: Adults
Book Pub: 1998
Audio: 1998 Brilliance
11 discs/13 hours
480 pgs.
Rating: 5 Connelly never disappoints! How does he do it, over and over again?
Finished: Jan. 28, 2009

Different protagonist, same setting. This is Terry McCaleb's first outing, but the story is set in LA, as are all Connelly's Harry Bosch novels. I read this before the next Harry Bosch, since the two protagonists will apparently come
together. Clint Eastwood was Terry McCaleb in a 2002 movie -- the storyline did not seem at all familiar, so I guess I didn't see the movie, which is hard to believe, but I've put it next on my queueueue (I never know how to spell that word) at Netflix.

Terry McCaleb used to be an FBI whiz. Now he's an unemployed transplanted heart recipient living on a broken-down sailboat in a somewhere-near-LA marina. A lovely young women tracks him down after a newspaper article about his transplant, asking him to investigate the murder of her sister - the woman whose heart is now beating in Terry's chest. What follows is a satisfying story that goes a mile-a-minute. He's clever. So is the murderer. And then it gets REALLY personal. Too personal for Terry. Love. Mystery. Fast paced. Really good. Thank goodness there's more to come!

59. Angels Flight - Michael Connelly

AUDIO Read by Dick Hill
For: Adults
Book Published: 1999
Audio Published: 1998, Brilliance (yup, these dates are correct)
9 discs
393 pages
Rating: 5/5
Finished Nov. 17, 2008

How does this guy keep thinking up such brilliant plots? Twists and turns and sitting in the car until I'm almost late to work....

Harry Bosch is called to head the team investigating a particularly tricky homocide. Howard Elias, a hated-by-cops and loved-by-blacks LA lawyer who has sued many, many LA cops, has been murdered. His most recent case, a powder keg involving the murder of a 12-year old white girl, could start race riots all over LA. The young black man he had been representing claimed that not only did he NOT do it, but that he'd been cruelly attacked while being questioned by the police. When Harry discovers what Howard Ellias has discovered - that the client is, indeed, innocent - a chain reaction is set off. Not only that, he's trying to quit smoking. AND he's partnered with an IAD jerk, Chastain, who tried to throw him to the wolves in the last book. But to top it off, his wife, Eleanor, has left him. Doesn't sound like she loves him enough. Poor Harry. Beautifully plotted and really well told, I couldn't stop reading/listening to this great yarn.

Hurrah, Harry Bosch! Keep 'em coming Michael Connelly!

54. Trunk Music - Michael Connelly

AUDIO Read by Dick Hill
For: Adults
Book Published: 1997
Audio Pub: 2006, Brilliance Audio
13 discs
383 pgs.
Rating: 5/5
Finished: Oct. 26, 2008

Another winner from Michael Connelly! A couple of new characters, a marriage, trips between LA and Las Vegas, Harry Bosch's sharp tongue and inablility to follow orders, twists and turns, intricate plots loops, and Dick Hill's superb reading make yet another winner. I've already reserved Angel's Flight, the next book in the series.

A year has passed since Harry's last outing. He has had his earthquake-ruined house rebuilt and returned to work at the Hollywood Homicide Bureau. He has a new boss, a very likeable female named Grace Billets. Finally, someone who sees how smart and honest Harry is, seems like an honest cop, and trusts him. That alone was quite satisfying.

Dirty movie producer Tony Aliso has been found shot and stuffed in his trunk just off Mulholland Drive. It looks like a gang hit, and his activities are traced to Las Vegas, where he is a frequent visitor. We find out that he is laundering money for the biggest "wheel" in Vegas, has a girlfriend there, and his twenty-year marriage to his wife, Veronica, has been a sham now for many years. Introduce a sleazy strip joint manager (who ends up not being who and what he seems to be), the FBI, a planted murder weapon, and the sudden appearance of a woman from Harry's past, and you have Trunk Music. Just when you think you're heading for the finale, another surprise hits the fan. Good stuff.

Biggest question now, where will Connelly go with the scenario he's set up for Harry Bosch? How much time will elapse between this book and the next? And what will he have happen during that time period, behind the scenes. How many more unheard-of people from Harry's past will suddenly appear? Ahh, I can't wait to find out!

48. The Last Coyote - Michael Connelly

AUDIO Read by Dick Hill (++)
For: Adults
Book Pub: 1995
Audio Pub: 1995 Brilliance Audio
13 hrs.
528 pgs.
Rating: 5/5
Finished: Sept. 15, 2008

Boy, I love Michael Connelly's plots and characters. You really get inside Harry Bosch's mind a little in this installment. It was sit-in-the-car-and -listen-until-you're-late good. I'm almost sorry it was over!

Harry Bosch is on temporary suspension from the LAPD because he threw Harvey Pounds, his lieutenant and boss, into a window head first. He WAS a snide, stupid son-of-a-gun. Part of the telling of this story comes as he sits and talks to his appointed police psychiatrist, a thoughtful, compassionate Hispanic woman named Carmen Hinojos. During his forced hiatus, he decides to look into the 1961 murder of his mother, an LA prostitute named Marjorie Lowe. Clues take him to a past DA Arno Conklin, Conklin's largest backer, Martel, a pimp named Johnny Fox, two homicide cops that had been on the case....and to Florida and Las Vegas. Also causing a dilemma is the ruination of his hillside home from earthquakes. Bosch just can't win. And even at the end of the book, Harry is contemplating leaving the police force as penance for getting at least one innocent person killed. Oh - and it looks like he might have even fallen in love!

Harry Bosch loses a little of his tougher-than-nails exterior in this novel. Hill's reading includes Harry's attitude and trepidation and heartbreak. Wow, he was good. And so was the storytelling. This guy has to be my all-time favorite mystery writer. I can't wait to read Trunk Music, Connelly's next Bosch creation.