Book Talk: Michael Connelly, ‘The Waiting’

During the early 1990s, I read my first Hieronymus (“Harry”) Bosch novel by Michael Connelly, and I’ve been a fan for more than 30 years. I think that his mastery of police mysteries is challenged by only a handful of authors, and Connelly is still “king of the hill.” In 1917, in “The Late Show,” he introduced Renée Ballard as a character in the series. Over the years, Renée has come to play a bigger role as Harry nears and then enters retirement from the LAPD. Connelly’s latest book, “The Waiting,” is advertised as a “Ballard and Bosch Novel,” indicating that Harry is finally a supporting character as Renée emerges as the principal protagonist.

People who have read previous publications in this fascinating series don’t need to hear more than that before they rush out to snatch a copy of “The Waiting” off the bookstore shelf or order it online. As we learned in previous works, Renée is the LAPD detective who runs the Open-and-Unsolved division which is operated by volunteers. She’s a seasoned, hard, and tough cop who has to handle her division of volunteers delicately in order to keep them focused and working on their cases. However, she desperately needs “another shield” (meaning another authorized police officer) on her staff because she’s being overwhelmed by tasks that only a sworn officer can handle.

Enter Maddy Bosch. Maddy is Harry Bosch’s daughter, an LA cop with two-year’s experience who wants to fast-track her way to a detective’s badge. Like her father, Maddy has a superior talent for spotting clues and connecting the dots in criminal cases. These traits become obvious when, as an LAPD cop who volunteers in her spare time to work with the Open-and-Unsolved unit, she reveals to Renée that she may have solved the decades-old Black Dahlia case.