Desert Star, by Michael Connelly

 

The Book

    Renee Ballard asks Harry Bosch to join the newly constituted Open Unsolved Unit as a volunteer. She knows Finbar McShane is his white whale. It's a simple quid pro quo, he can chase his white whale, but first he has to spear the one of the city council person, Jake Pearlman. Back in the day, Pearlman's sister was brutally murdered in her own bed while their parents were out of town and he was out on a date with his girlfriend. The case has been languishing for 17 long years, and his parents died without knowing who killed Sarah. 

    Bosch meets the rest of the team, a psychic/genealogist Colleen Hatteras, a former FBI agent, Ton Laffont, retired Vegas cop Lilia Aghzafi, a retired prosecutor for the DA, Paul Messer, and Pearlman's buddy, a detective from the valley, Ted "Lou" Rawls. Bosch quickly sniffs out that Colleen is using her empathic "gift" to supplement her work, which drives Ballard up a wall. And Rawls is basically dead weight, only working one day a week, and barely that if he comes in. She knows he's a direct pipeline to the councilman, but she bides her time. 

    Bosch does what Bosch always does in a cold case and starts at the beginning. He has a hunch that a piece of evidence may have DNA on it, and he turns out to be correct. When the DNA gets a case to case hit, meaning DNA was accidentally left at another murder, the team is certain they are hunting a serial killer. 

    Meanwhile, Bosch goes and rattles the last remaining witness, Sheila Walsh. She doesn't want to cooperate, but Bosch has her running pretty stressed and while he lets her stew, he and Renee pursue the serial killer. But as the case goes forward, Bosch's legendary control seems to be slipping. And Renee isn't sure if she can save his job. She keeps going, but Bosch has one last dark secret up his sleeve. 

My Thoughts

    I will be deeply surprised if the next Bosch book isn't the last one. We've known for a few books now that Bosch has cancer, and in this book, we know the prognosis is terminal. There's very little more than can be done. While this was an interesting installment in the series, I don't know what to make of Renee and her character arc. In a lot of ways she's more complicated than Bosch, and I like that about her. I like her better than I liked Kizmin Rider. But Renee is showing signs of stagnation as a character, and since Connelly only wrote one book with her at as the only detective, I think something is going to have to give. I haven't read through some of the other series, like I have Bosch and Mickey Haller, but those two main characters seems to just leap off of the page. Connelly clearly has a deep affection for both characters and a clear idea of who they are. I sense, perhaps Connelly is uneasy writing Renee, which I find a bit sad, because Eleanor Wish was really so well drawn. And I personally, would love to see Maddie come into her own book as well. So yeah, not a lot of my thoughts are about the plot of this book, it's pretty straight forward. And a tightly written. If you're a fan, you'll get a lot out of this book. Just brace yourself, because I am certain this ride is nearly over, and if I know anything at all about Connelly, he will send Bosch out with a BANG. 

How Much My Library Card Saved Me

    This book entered my library on Nov 22, 2022 (I love that date, so cool.) The book has been gently read and the pages are still a bit stiff. So I think maybe I'm about the 5th or 6th reader of the book. That's just a guess, based on how many times it takes for my hard covers to feel like an easy read. At 388 pages, it's a bit shorter, in fact, I think over the past 10 years, on average, it feels like the books are getting shorter. But since I didn't keep the data from the earlier books, and I don't have time to research it, we will have to wait until this November to find out. The book cost $29.00 

This Book                                $29.00

This Summer                        $803.21

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