The Dark Hours
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
A Wall Street Journal and South Florida Sun-Sentinel Best Book of the Year
“A masterpiece”—LAPD detective Renée Ballard must join forces with Harry Bosch to find justice in a city scarred by fear and social unrest after a methodical killer strikes on New Year’s Eve (Publishers Weekly).
There’s chaos in Hollywood at the end of the New Year’s Eve countdown. Working her graveyard shift, LAPD detective Renée Ballard waits out the traditional rain of lead as hundreds of revelers shoot their guns into the air. Only minutes after midnight, 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.
Ballard quickly determines that the deadly bullet could not have fallen from the sky and that it is linked to another unsolved murder—a case at one time worked by Detective Harry Bosch. At the same time, Ballard hunts a fiendish pair of serial rapists, the Midnight Men, who have been terrorizing women and leaving no trace.
Determined to solve both cases, Ballard feels like she is constantly running uphill in a police department indelibly changed by the pandemic and recent social unrest. It is a department so hampered by inertia and low morale that Ballard must go outside to the one detective she can count on: Harry Bosch. But as the two inexorable detectives work together to find out where old and new cases intersect, they must constantly look over their shoulders. The brutal predators they are tracking are ready to kill to keep their secrets hidden.
Unfolding with unstoppable drive and nail-biting intrigue, The Dark Hours shows that “relentless on their own, Ballard’s and Bosch’s combined skills…could be combustible” (Los Angeles Times).
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In Michael Connelly’s intense crime thriller, real-world turmoil ups the pressure to find a killer. When the body of a former gang member is found on the streets of downtown L.A., authorities initially blame a riotous, pandemic-crazed New Year’s Eve celebration. But tough-as-nails LAPD detective Renée Ballard’s meticulous forensics investigation links the shooting to one of legendary retired detective Harry Bosch’s cold cases, leading Connelly’s popular protagonists to team up. Suspense superstar Connelly brilliantly lays out the details of police work with an urgency that puts us on the dark streets where a killer from the past—as well as a mysterious crew of nocturnal predators known as the Midnight Men—is terrorizing the community. Christine Lakin has just the right cool delivery for the tough Ballard, and as always, Titus Welliver perfectly captures the crusty Bosch. Using ripped-from-the-headlines details around COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter protests to up the suspense, Connelly delivers a page-turning thriller that feels as real as the nightly news.