Dark Sacred Night features a team up
of Harry Bosh and Detective Ballard who was
first introduced in The Late Show. It also marks a sort of passing of the torch as
Bosch sees in Ballard much of the same attitudes that powered his law
enforcement career since he came home from Vietnam.
As the
book opens, Bosch is still working cold cases for the San Fernando Police
Department. Detective Ballard witnesses Bosh snooping in the file cabinets in
Hollywood Division late one night during her shift and becomes curious as to what
Bosch was doing in the station. She learns that Bosch is digging into a nine
year old murder case. Back in 2009 a young runaway and prostitute by the name
of Daisy Clayton was murdered, cleaned after death with bleach and a brush, and
dumped into a dumpster. No one was ever charged with the crime. Bosch is
working the case for his own reasons including the fact that he is trying to help
the Mother deal with what has happened and find some sort of justice.
Ballard wants to be
part of it. Bosch agrees and soon both are working the cold case when they are
not individually working their own current case load. Of course, murder and
crime never stops so they have plenty to do in other cases.
As long
time readers of Michael Connelly know, the author brings an authenticity to his
books that few authors can match. Such is the case here in Dark Sacred Night which
is billed as a Ballard and Bosch novel. While we learn little more about the Bosch
character than we already knew, Ballard is fleshed out a little more. In so
doing it is clear that she is partly a female version of Bosch, but she is also
clearly her own separate person looking at LAPD and all with her own
preconceptions of the world and her place in it. While Bosch is increasingly
okay with blurring the lines to take bad guys off the board, she is not yet all
the way there with him which sets up potential clashes going forward.
Dark Sacred Night is a mighty good
read.
Dark Sacred Night: A Ballard and Bosch Novel
Michael Connelly
Little, Brown and Company Large Print (Hachette Book Group)
October 2018
ISBN#978-0-316-52672-2
Large Print Hardback (book is also available in regular print,
audio, and digital formats)
560 Pages
$31.00
Material supplied
by the good folks of the Dallas Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2018
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