Desert Star

The Bosch series is pretty consistently good, but I've really enjoyed the addition of Renee Ballard to the overarching series, because their dynamic is really good. The previous one was actually my least favorite of the series, but Desert Star is a return to form. This is just good old fashioned crime fiction done well. Bosch is one of my favorite non-fantasy protagonists.

One aspect I don't see talked about is the audiobooks. Maybe it's just on my mind because of the very end of this book, but I've never seen audiobooks done the way the Bosch universe does them. The actor who plays Bosch on the show, Titus Welliver, went back and recorded some of the older Bosch books and now does all the Bosch audio. The voice actress who does the Ballard books also does Renee Ballard. So these collab books have trading viewpoints, but the dialogue of the opposite character is always done by the respective voice actor (so Titus will voice Bosch in Renee's POV chapters) and Connolly has a third series, the Lincoln Lawyer, which also crosses over occasionally. This book had that character in for a single conversation and they brought in the voice actor for those books to do like 10 lines. I just really like this approach. I wish more series did it.

8/10

There's an elegance to Michael Connelly's writing. No fancy prose. No unnecessary words. Like his principal characters, it's terse and gets the job done, but there's a real pro's prose at work. I always enjoy reading his books. The grit and realism make the words hit harder, and they make the impact of the scenes stronger.

With this book, Harry Bosch is all but done with the game. When Renee Ballard gives him a chance to go after his white whale, Finbar McShane, Harry can't resist. He joins Ballard's Open-Unsolved Cases Unit as a volunteer and starts the legwork to find the man who murdered a family with a nail gun and buried them in the desert nine years ago.

Like the rest of Connelly's work, the book is compelling and moves at a brisk clip. Unlike the rest of Connolly's work, it really feels like Harry Bosch is closing in on the end of not just a series, but the life he's lived. It feels like this could be Bosch's penultimate journey. It feels like Connelly is setting up Bosch's jaunt through the literary world to end once and for all.

All good things must come to an end, and Bosch is included in this. It wouldn't make sense for him to be written by anyone else, and after 30+ books with Bosch, this might be setting up the great cop's finale.

I, for one, will be sad to see him go, as Connelly's books are something I look forward to every year. Give me at least one more ride around LA with Bosch, Mike, and then I'll be ready to close his case.