Trying to Juggle Two Cases
Retirement can’t keep a good character down. I love seeing how author Michael Connelly has been able to extend the Harry Bosch series beyond Bosch’s second retirement from the Los Angeles Police Department, where he worked for most of the books in the series so far. The Wrong Side of Goodbye has its challenges, but overall, it’s good.
Due to budget cuts, the San Fernando Police Department has been looking for creative ways to get crimes solved. One of those is to bring in axillary officers, essentially retired cops who want to volunteer a few hours a month. Bosch is more than happy to jump into one of those roles, and he is easily exceeding the minimum requirements. That’s how he’s gotten involved in the Screen Cutter case. He’s working with another detective to try to find a man who has been attacking multiple women in the area in their homes.
Meanwhile, Bosch is also working on private cases as a licensed PI. His newest client is a reclusive billionaire who is about to die. He has no heir to leave anything to…or does he? Years ago, he got a young woman pregnant, and he wants to find out if that means he has an heir now. Bosch doesn’t have much to work with, but he manages to pick up a trail. What will he find?
Both of these cases intrigued me from the start, and I appreciated how Michael Connelly kept upping the stakes for both of them, making it obvious why Bosch was switching his focus from one to the other when he did. The further I went along, the more I was hooked on the story and didn’t want to stop when I had to.
However, I didn’t feel the payoff for both stories was good. One got a great climax, but I think Michael Connelly realized he’d run out of room to properly wrap up the other storyline. Don’t misunderstand me, we did get a conclusion to both stories that was logical. I just felt like some things in the second story were rushed or abruptly put into the story so we’d feel satisfied. I didn’t get the closure I was supposed to, however.
Even though he’s retired, Bosch is still Bosch. To a certain extent I love that. I mean, it’s great seeing him relentlessly pursue a case. However, at some point, I’d really like to have him not dealing with stupid bureaucracy. Or maybe learn to navigate it a little better. But I don’t expect we will ever really see that. We do get to see just a little bit of his daughter, and Mickey Haller also appears. Other than that, we get all new characters.
That’s not a bad thing since the cast is all strong. They really do feel like real people with pasts that lead to the events of this book.
As always, keep in mind that these are police procedurals. There’s a bit more content as a result. A couple of scenes could have been trimmed as far as I was concerned, but this is a minor complaint as usual.
This book is Titus Welliver’s third time as narrator. Again, I thought he did a great job at bringing the story to life without getting in the way of the events unfolding on the page.
Overall, The Wrong Side of Goodbye is another Harry Bosch book that fans will enjoy. I know I did.
Be sure to enjoy the rest of the Harry Bosch Mysteries.
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