Wild Plotting, But Should Be Ranked As One Of The Books Of The Year
Reviewed in the United States on October 20, 2024 | Rating: 5/5 | Best Sellers in Audible Books & Originals
of course this is a wonderful book  michael connelly is a topfive crime writer a master of his craft  he knows la like the back of his hand and he represents it and its travel times realistically  he has created iconic characters he takes on significant themes and he can plot with exquisite skilltwo things concerning this book should be noted  first this is not really a ‘ballard and bosch novel’ so much as a ballard and bosch family novel  harry appears very briefly in the book though at important moments perhaps 5 of it  his daughter maddie joins ballard’s cold case group in important ways for about 20 of the book  this is not a criticism it is simply a matter of truth in advertisingsecond the plot  there are actually three plots  ballard’s team is searching for a serial rapist primarily through dna evidence  second ballard’s badge and gun are stolen while she is surfing and she must recover them or face threats of seeing her unit dissolved and herself transferred to far more trivial and far less interesting duty  finally and this is the wild wrinkle maddie approaches ballard with evidence of the identity of the murderer of the black dahlia elizabeth short  this titanic discovery is presented with a modern twist the politicized da refuses to prosecute ie close the case since the perp is long dead because the chief of police backed a different candidate in his election and he values his personal spite over the public’s need to know and the remaining families of the other victims’ thirst for justicethe evidence for the identification of the dahlia’s murderer turns on a relatively new technique which involves the precise measurements of the elements of a person’s ear more precise than fingerprint evidence  this gives mc the opportunity to show his very considerable procedural chopswhile the plotting is ‘different’ and totally unexpected it is also engaging and memorablebottom line it is hard to rank a mc novel because the quality is always there  i can only say that this should be ranked as one of the books of the year for 2024  an easy 5 stars