Novels No. 74

 

Michael Connelly. The Waiting. Large Print. USA: Little, Brown and Company, 2024.

Hello again, Harry Bosch! Good to see you, although Detective Renée Ballard has taken over as the established cop of Connelly's LAPD series. Ballard is chief of the Open-Unsolved Unit with a team of volunteers and a good rate of solving cold cases. A keen surfer, her police ID and gun are stolen while she's riding the board; she fears losing her position if her superiors find out, so she's privately hunting the suspects who left a trail through layers of criminal activities. Above all, she must retrieve her police badge. The team finds that the DNA of a man charged with domestic violence is a match to the cold "Pillowcase Rapist" case, so investigative genetic genealogist Colleen Hatteras is working on a family tree. Then Maddie, Bosch's daughter who is now a police officer, requests placement on the OU team on her off duty time. Maddie has stumbled on a potential case of sensational proportions.

Locating Ballard's police badge leads to a dangerous terrorist conspiracy; Renée is forced to involve the FBI as well as old friend Harry. For each cold case successfully solved, the DA must officially sign off on it; that may be a problem when politics raise an ugly snag. A search for the domestic abuse perp's biological father uncovers more than one possibility for being the Pillowcase Rapist. And an old filing cabinet contains evidence of eight horrific murders related to the infamous, real-life Black Dahlia killing. Dodging protocol issues and interference from her bosses, Renée directs her team on painstaking searches and interviews while encouraging Maddie's detective instincts. Until the unexpected happens—a shocking murder on their own doorstep.

Connelly never fails, does he? With all these items in motion, it's like having three novels in one. Like a juggler, he provides a fascinating performance where no balls get dropped.

Bits

▪ "What are you saying? We might be barking up the wrong family tree?" (84)

▪ "What's it going to be, Dean? I take off the cuffs or I take you to jail? I'm running out of goodwill here." (109)

▪ She knew she would have to go in blind, and for the first time she started second-guessing her off-the-books maneuvering to get her badge and gun back. (117)

▪ "Great," Bosch said. "Now we have homeless terrorists." (142)

▪ Ballard wasn't ready for it, and the centrifugal force threw her against the back of the van with a thud. (160)

▪ "Believe me, it's not a story I would enjoy sharing. I saw the photos. I'll never forget them. Horrible." (210)

▪ "We tried to have children of our own," the judge said. "It wasn't happening." (257)

▪ Ballard saw Maddie lean her head back as she realized her mistake. "Uh, we can't show you those right now, ma'am," she said. (302)

▪ "Mallory did pass out, right? That's why she wasn't in the photo, correct?" (390)

Peter James. One of Us Is Dead. UK: Macmillan, 2024.

This is a first for me, this author I mean, although I see dozens of books to his credit. Superintendent Roy Grace is a busy man heading Major Crimes, guiding his friend DI Glenn Branson on an unusual case—Barnie Wallace's suspicious death from eating toxic wild mushrooms. Supermarket cameras clearly reveal that the victim's package of mushrooms was switched in the checkout line. But the perpetrator effectively concealed his ID. Who would want to kill inoffensive Barnie Wallace, a loser by most accounts, but lately a budding gourmet chef? This case, plus two more story threads, are all going to come together as readers know from experience. At Barnie's funeral, friend James Taylor believes he sees another old friend in attendance—Rufus Rorke; but James delivered the eulogy at Rufus' own funeral two years before! James, Barnie, and Rufus had been tight youthful chums, losing track of each in later years. On a different track, the police have 98% confirmed that the intentional mushroom switcher had been Rufus, a person of interest well before his disappearance off a yacht two years ago.

James is intrigued enough to follow up his sighting with questions to various people, including Barnie's ex-wife Debbie Martin. Besides their curiosity about Rufus, unaware of the police interest in him, James and Debbie find a mutual attraction. We also meet Paul Anthony, a shady businessman, who convinces his tech-savvy girlfriend Shannon to take orders for making 3-D printed guns. It seems that Paul is the dark web's go-to guy for hire if you fancy a fatal accident for someone you dislike. Thus the narrative shifts among the various participants. Finding Rufus and/or proving he's not dead becomes imperative. The easy camaraderie among police officers is notable, so far from the contentious/nasty rivalry among colleagues in many detective novels. However, inserting a physical fight between Grace and an old enemy seems completely gratuitous. No doubt the author is signaling a loose end to faithful readers of the series.

A very exacting police procedural, with an ingenious, sociopathic villain. A villain whose methods may require a tiny amount of disbelief suspension at times. But Roy Grace is an admirably sensitive, thoughtful cop on a desperate race to save a life.

Fragments

▪ "If he was a trained chef, how on earth did he not realize these were deadly? Was he a total idiot?" (44)

▪ How had Barnie tracked him down after his quite magnificent and convincing funeral? (64)

▪ They would be bound together in conspiracy to murder ‒ whether she liked it or not. It would be an end to that tiny bit of love, commitment, affection ‒ whatever ‒ that she always seemed to hold back. (177)

▪ "In the absence of any other suspects, right now our best hope is a dead man." (112)

▪ He walked across the floor, holding a perfectly made macchiato, handing it to the woman he had contemplated killing three years ago, before realizing she was more useful alive. (185)

▪ He'd been almost sorry to have despatched Barnie. He wouldn't feel any emotion at all if he had to kill goody-two-shoes Taylor. (210)

▪ "Now I'm starting to feel real uncomfortable. I didn't get paid enough to deal with all this stuff. So I called your Fiona and she said to phone you." (296)

▪ Taylor looked at Debbie and the look she gave him back totally melted him. I could fall in love with you, he thought. (326)

▪ "I've not actually committed any provable offence, Paul," she said. (347)