Desert Star
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4.3 • 566 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
LAPD detective Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch work together to hunt the killer who is Bosch's 'white whale' - a man responsible for the murder of an entire family.
A year has passed since LAPD detective Renée Ballard quit the force in the face of misogyny, demoralisation and endless red tape. Yet after the chief of police himself tells her she can write her ticket within the department, Ballard takes back her badge, leaving 'the Late Show' to rebuild the cold case unit at the elite Robbery-Homicide Division.
For years, Harry Bosch has been working a case that haunts him but that he hasn't been able to crack - the murder of an entire family by a psychopath who still walks free. Ballard makes Bosch an offer: come work with her as a volunteer investigator in the new Open-Unsolved Unit, and he can pursue his 'white whale' with the resources of the LAPD behind him.
The two must put aside old resentments to work together again and close in on a dangerous killer. Propulsive and unstoppable, this new novel demonstrates once again why 'Connelly is the real deal' (Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review).
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Former Los Angeles Times police reporter Michael Connelly continues his long-running and immensely popular Harry Bosch and Renée Ballard series with Desert Star. Few genre writers are able to capture a sense of time, place and procedure as well as Connelly does with LA’s mercurial amalgamation of glamour and grit. That precision-point ear for dialogue and description is expertly on display in this latest tale, which sees hard-boiled detective Harry Bosch reuniting with deputy Renée Ballard, who entices him back to police work with an irresistible promise. In exchange for his expertise, he’ll have carte blanche to hunt his ‘one that got away’: a killer responsible for the death of an entire family and who remains a free man. Fans of Connelly’s extensive body of work on the page or the big screen will find everything they have come to expect from this pitch-perfect crime procedural, while new readers will be sucked in by the irascible Bosch and his LA beat.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In bestseller Connelly's thrilling fifth outing for Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch (after 2021's The Dark Hours), Ballard invites the retired Bosch to volunteer for the LAPD's newly revived Open-Unsolved Unit, which she's running, enticing him with the prospect of finding the man responsible for the 2013 slaying of an entire family. She also wants to reopen the 1994 murder of 16-year-old Sarah Pearlman, sister of the L.A. city councilman who helped resuscitate the cold case team. Ballard and Bosch work at the department's new homicide archive where the unsolved murder books are stored: "hallowed ground to Bosch. The library of lost souls." Both cases require deep dives into the past; both lead to great action scenes; and, as always, Connelly displays his encyclopedic knowledge of the latest forensics, such as "Investigative Genetic Genealogy." Bosch, however, takes a low-tech approach and follows leads in the field with his trademark intensity, driven by his desire to restore order in a violent world ("The dark engine of murder would never run low on fuel. Not in his lifetime"). This entry, the 24th Bosch novel, may not be as expansive as The Dark Hours, but it ranks up there with Connelly's best.
Customer Reviews
Loved it
Amazing. I hope this isn’t goodbye Bosch. What a series it has been.
Twists and turns
Love the way stories twist and turn and keep you guessing
Desert star
Great read - no reservations for recommending it to a Bosch reader