Sunday Synopsis-The Night Fire

 

The Night Fire by Michael Connelly
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another winner from Connelly. This book is a bonus with 3 of his prominent characters. Obviously, there is Harry Bosch, former LAPD and current private detective. In a previous book as in this one, he teams up with Renee Ballard (who works the Late Show at LAPD) to work a cold case that ends up having ties to two current cases. Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer, makes a couple of appearances in this book as well.

Bosch's mentor, John Jack Thompson, has died, and Harry inherits a murder book that Thompson took with him when he retired. Bosch and Ballard team up to find out who murdered a young man in known drug/gang territory many years ago. As it turns out, this murder has ties to former druglords, the death of a current judge, and the murder of a homeless man whose tent caught fire with him in it. I do agree with a reviewer at Library Thing that the three murders are only loosely connected.

I really like the Bosch character... always have, although I'm not super fond of the Amazon Prime show of the same name. However, I just can't like Renee Ballard. Who lives in a tent on the beach with her dog and leaves her dog in day care every night when she goes to work. Who does that?

The plot was carefully conceived, although the tie for the three events was peripheral. Ballard faces off with her nemesis, Captain Olivas once again. Bosch has inner conflict when he helps Haller set a murder suspect free, so there is some complexity and depth to the plot. Overall, it was a pretty good book.


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