I Sense the Beginning of a Beautiful Partnership
Since I first heard that Michael Connelly was teaming up his long time main character, Harry Bosch, with his newest (at the time) main character, Renee Ballard, I was curious to read it. Obvious he liked it since he’s continued to do that with the characters for several more books. I’ve finally to the point in his backlog so I am reading that first partnership, Dark Sacred Night, and I enjoyed it overall.
It all starts one night when Ballard catches Bosch breaking into the file cabinets in the Hollywood police station. While he claims he is feeling nostalgic for his old case files, she doesn’t believe him. Some investigating on her own leads Ballard to the conclusion that Bosch is working on a case involving a teen who was murdered and left in an alley dumpster over 10 years before and she gets herself involved in the case. Will the two of them solve this cold case together?
Of course, neither of the detectives are working on just the one case. For Bosch, he has a new lead on a cold gang related slaying in San Fernando, where he is working cold cases as a volunteer. Ballard gets several different cases as part of her regular duties as a detective on the overnight shift.
While I’ve been reading Connelly’s books in order, most of the time, the only thing that carries over from one book to the next is the personal life developments. That’s not the case here. The main mystery that the two detectives are trying to solve was introduced in the previous Bosch novel, Two Kind of Truth. I’ve got to admit, it took me longer than it should have to realize that fact considering I read the previous book just a few months ago. I do suggest you read that book first since much of Bosch’s story here is an outflow of that book.
The book is split between Bosch and Ballard, getting several chapters at a time from each’s point of view. The changes are always labeled. This allows us to get updates on what is going on with each of them and the characters in their lives, something I appreciated.
I did feel like the sub cases each were dealing with individually were a little underdeveloped. This mostly happened on Ballard’s side of things. Still, they were entertaining.
And the main case? It kept my interest. I did have a couple of niggles with it, including how stupid Ballard was at the end. But overall, I was satisfied with how it wrapped up.
My standard disclaimer with this series comes into play here. These are police procedurals, and include more language, sex, and violence than I typically read. Know that before you pick up the book.
As usual, I read this via audio book. Since the two characters have chapters where they are center stage, we get two narrators. Titus Welliver is still narrating the Bosch portion of the book, but Christine Lakin has taken over the Ballard portion. Yes, they each read everything in the chapters they are reading. It took a little bit to adjust, but I did quickly and enjoyed both of their performances.
I’m looking forward to seeing how the rest of the Ballard and Bosch team ups go. If Dark Sacred Night, and the rest of Connelly’s books, are in indication, I’ll enjoy them.
Here are the rest of the Harry Bosch and Renee Ballard novels.
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