I know that the Harry Bosch series has been around for a long time and I;ve only read one other (I know shame on me) so whilst this does read as a standalone, I really do think it would be better to have come at it having been immersed in the world of Bosch before.

A crime novel involving new and cold cases lends itself to all sorts of tangles and this one throws them at you in spades. Good tangles mind, that unravel to shock and surprise. The way the cases merge and link in with each other is nicely done and it was nice to feel I was investigating along with Bosch himself.

There’s a lot of meatiness to this novel - and a lot of criminal goings on, Russian gangs, drugs and the way this all folds together makes for a gripping read. I do feel I missed out having not read the series though.

There are very few events in my reading history that beat the thrill of delving into a new Michael Connelly/Harry Bosch novel. Harry may well be into his mid 60's now but he still has that hunger, that old coyote weariness about him, that first made him a grade one detective some 30 years ago. He's now older, definitely wiser his skills very much in demand by an undermanned LAPD.

At the start of "Two Kinds of Truth" Harry is doing what he does best, searching through cold case files in a "drunk tank" somewhere in San Fernando. His suspicions are aroused when detectives arrive to confront him about an investigation many years old. With the advance in forensic medicine the investigation that led to the conviction of Preston Borders, in the trial of Danielle Skyler, is now in danger of collapse. This follows the discovery of semen, belonging to a rapist Lucas John Olmer, since deseased, on some of the victims clothing. So the reality is that Borders could be freed and a wrongful arrest case brought against Harry, the ramifications of this are immense as Bosch's 30 year workload could now be open to scrutiny. Our hero is furious but has little time to dwell on his feelings and the rights or wrongs of an old case, as the Los Angeles County once again needs his skill when a double murder occurs at a downtown pharmacy "La Farmacia Familia". In spectacular fashion he arrives, he is a happy man once again as he is now one of the lead detectives on a "live" case. The author so vividly portrays the innermost thoughts and workings of this great detective, and has me the reader cheering when once again Harry is back!! I realize that not only will Bosch solve this case but he will be accompanied by you and me dear reader riding as shotgun, and that is something we cannot miss!

In the background the historic cold case proceeds and meanwhile Bosch's present assignment sees him becoming involved in the processing and handling of illegal prescriptions involving large quantities of drugs. In the course of this operation we once again meet Harry's old partner Jerry Edgar and it is wonderful to witness the "sparring" that still exists between them. Edgar never felt that Bosch truly trusted him and he now feels a little exhilarated that he is supplying vital information to his ex partner..."Bosch asked the question, jumping at the opportunity to show some expertise to the man who had always doubted him"... Connelly has always painted Bosch as a loner and even though he got results and solved cases he was always viewed as a maverick playing by his own set of rules.

The drug scam is quite simple; enlist the poor and desperate in society with a deep and entrenched drug habit. Then with the help of a bogus doctor authorize illegal prescriptions which are "cashed" in at the Farmacia. Bosch estimates that this is an industry worth more than thirteen million per year. To infiltrate this operation our hero has elected to go undercover, something new in a Connelly novel and adding an extra lair of anticipation and excitement! By going undercover Bosch puts himself in grave danger and all his colleagues and friends begin calling and leaving messages on his cell phone. I have a gripe with Bosch and his two sided standards. He loves dearly his daughter Maddie who is now a student and he implores her to be careful especially at night when she collects her car from a dismal concrete car park adjacent to her college. Yet here he is a 68 year old man about to board a small plane in the company of two Russian thugs...and he notices on takeoff that the back door is wedged open.....and they are about to fly over the sea! He is in mortal danger, what will I the reader do if the unthinkable happens? and more importantly what will young Maddie feel that the one stable person in her life her father who she loves dearly...is no more??..."His life and his world had once again clobbered his daughter. If he vowed to make those who did this pay, didn't that include himself?"....."There was no one in the world Bosch trusted more than his daughter. He told her everything, more detail than he had even told the collective in the mobile command post. He felt the details would mean more to her, and at the same time, he knew he was telling her about the dark side of the world. It was a place she had to know about, he believed no matter where she went with her life.".....

I love Michael Connelly. I love the way he has brought the life of H Bosch into my home over many years. His stories are to me about life, love, relationships, the good and bad that happens, and the evil that is prevalent all around us, the choices that we make, the decisions we take and the consequences we must reap. I love the frailties on display through Harry and the bond that exists between him and his daughter the wonderful Maddie and I fear for Harry, I worry what will happen to her if ever the unthinkable were to occur to her father...."People lie, the president lies, corporations lie and cheat.....The world is ugly and not many people are willing to stand up to it anymore"...

So the two story threads are brought to a very fitting conclusion amidst a highly charged courtroom drama involving Bosch's colourful half brother, Los Angeles based attorney Mickey Haller. Yet amongst all this elation Harry is a restless soul, a man who never seems at ease with himself, a nonconformist with a really big heart. I admire the guy, I applaud the way he unearthed $10,000 from his "end of the world emergency fund" to save the drug soul of Elizabeth Clayton, a dope addict he whose life went out of control when her daughter Daisy was killed. Connelly's stories about a Los Angeles detective are as fresh today as when the first book was published some 25 years ago. Harry Bosch may well be in the autumn of his life but he but he still retains magnetism and human qualities that we all recognise. I look forward to his next outing with great anticipation and would like to thank Orion and the good people of netgalley for a gratis copy in return for an honest review and that is what I have written.

Just finished this book which is the 22nd in the Harry Bosch series and I must say I did not want to put it down. As soon as I began reading I was straight back in the familiar character and his landscape.

Harry is now retired but volunteering as an investigator into cold cases at San Fernando Police Department and works out of an old cell as an office. There are several story lines to follow; one is the current cold case investigation into a rape/murder; then a current double homicide when a father and son pharmacists are killed in cold blood at the pharmacy by two masked men. To add to Harry’s problems he is visited by some old colleagues from the LAPD conviction integrity unit who inform him that a murderer on death row is seeking to have his sentence overturned and citing Harry as planting evidence to gain a wrongful conviction.

In investigating the double murder Harry goes undercover to discover how the pharmacy scam works and to see who is involved. During this period a newspaper article reveals him as an ex-policeman leaving Harry in a perilous position.

Meanwhile his brother/lawyer is trying to solve a mystery associated with the accusations against Harry which results in a court case. Add in the Hell’s Angels, a beautiful but flawed woman who is addicted to drugs, Harry’s daughter away at college and Harry’s musings on Lucia Soto’s loyalty (his old partner) and last but not least Harry’s awareness of his increasing age.

This is well-written and evenly paced, I found each element to be of great interest. Connelly always supplies a really good plot and this is no exception and his characterisation is without doubt realistic with Bosch’s personality fulfilling the role of lone wolf aware of, and challenging those who are morally corrupt whether criminal or politician.

If you liked his earlier stories of Harry Bosch, I would be amazed if you didn’t enjoy this.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for providing an ARC via my Kindle in return for an honest review.

After a couple of Harry Bosch novels that didn't really capture my attention, I was unsure if I should bother with Two Kinds of Truth.

I am so glad I did. This is Michael Connelly on top form.

Even when he is retired Harry cannot let go of the job completely. He has to find an outlet for his talents and does so by volunteering with a local police force. This rings true for the character I have followed over so many books over the course of the years.

As well as seeing the older Harry and how he is dealing with ageing and semi-retirement we are treated to glimpses of the young Harry. A newly-minted detective solving his first major homicide case.

As a reader, I recognise that Harry is far from perfect but I never doubted his honesty. The story from his past only made we wonder how the fraud was perpetrated. It is a lesson in how sometimes people get blindsided by what they want to see rather than what is true.

The storyline involving the older Harry has a lot of political overtones. It seems as though to be poor and old in the America of today is a crime in itself. And to be young and idealistic is no protection from the wickedness of this world.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a fast paced police-procedural or mystery story.

I felt honoured to receive a preview copy of the 22nd Bosch novel from NetGalley. And what a treat it was, starting it on Saturday and finishing it on Sunday! With pure tunnel vision for this gripping story.

It never ceases to amaze me how Michael Connelly is continually able to reinvent and reinvigorate Harry Bosch for another novel, 22 books into the series (which I have read in order) there is no dip in quality at all, if anything they are getting better.

Reading a Bosch novel is like meeting up with an old friend you haven't seen in a while and having a proper, good old fashioned, catch up. And I love spending my time with this guy.

As with many other Bosch novels "Two Kinds of Truth" has two distinct story threads, one which refers back to a murder investigation from thirty years earlier (not in a previous novel) and the current strand an investigation into a double murder in a pharmacy. Both stories are superb examples of thriller story writers and we hurtle around Los Angeles at breakneck speed.

Great characters from previous novels pop up here and there, Jerry Edgar his previous partner, Maddie his daughter amongst others. Bosch is now around 65 and is mentoring some of the younger detectives in the small police department he continues to volunteer in from the previous book.

I have no idea how Connelly can regularly release two books a year of such high quality, earlier in the year he introduced us to a new detective in "The Late Show" and that was an equally excellent book.

Unmissable for thriller and crime readers. Let's hope Harry Bosch returns again in 2018!

Twenty-five years ago gruff LAPD detective Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch first burst onto the page, investigating the murder of a fellow Vietnam ‘tunnel rat’ in a drainpipe in Mulholland Dam.

He was already middle-aged then, a maverick not because he was a youthful upstart, but a man in his early 40s who had a very strong sense of who he was and what was important to him. It's the people who matter, the victims and finding justice, more than rules and systems of his superiors.

Then and now, Bosch lived by the credo 'everybody counts or nobody counts', and felt his mission to find justice for victims deep in his bone marrow.

Plenty of murky water has flowed under the bridge in the quarter-century since The Black Echo. Nowadays, Bosch is a volunteer for the tiny San Fernando PD, spending his days in a converted jail cell combing over cold cases then getting out on the streets to investigate, unable to give up being ‘a closer’ even if the LAPD has jettisoned him and he now qualifies for Social Security.

Various elements from his past come calling in Two Kinds of Truth, a marvelous tale that shows Bosch and Connelly, two of the very best at what they do, are both still at the very top of their considerable game.

There's a lovely mix of familiarity and freshness - a tough balance to strike in a long-running series: give long-time readers what they've loved over many books plus something new, but not so new or 'out of the box' that it jolts or feels 'wrong' in a world carefully created over many years.

Connelly squarely hits that difficult sweet spot in Two Kinds of Truth.

While mulling a cold case disappearance and probable murder that still haunts his new boss in the San Fernando PD, Bosch finds out that one of his own old cases has reared back into ugly life.

New DNA evidence links a dead rapist to a vicious killing that resulted a young Bosch helping put another man on death row. Now that 'innocent' man might be released, but Bosch is certain he was right, then and now. As those in power look to throw Bosch under the bus for what could become a massive, and costly, legal mess, he also heads down a deadly path investigating a double-murder at a local farmacia alongside his SFPD colleagues, who aren’t used to this kind of crime.

Connelly masterfully balances the twin investigations, past and present, providing a rollicking story for new readers and long-time fans. Several ‘guest stars’ from past books make a welcome return, underlining the holistic LA world Connelly has crafted over a quarter-century.

Add in Harry Bosch, approaching septuagenarian status, still facing fresh challenges and being put to new tests externally and internally his vast experience, and that equals one of the all-time great crime series continuing to grow its greatness. Perhaps the Pappy Van Winkle of modern crime.

This Bosch is a mixed bag, unfortunately. Mostly it's two stories, #1 about an old case come back to haunt Bosch, and #2 a new case, a double murder. Some parts of both are marvellous, with Bosch "on a mission", driving truth and justice forward like a steamroller.

As usual with my reviews, please first read the publisher’s blurb/summary of the book. Thank you Orion and NetGalley for the chance to preview this book.

However, in much of the book we see Bosch becoming an old man, sadly. Much of story #1 takes place in Bosch's mind, going over old facts, an info-dump of past history without any "road trip investigation" activities. This is disappointing, and honestly, quite dull. In his past "cold case" investigations, there have been many investigative actions to keep the plot moving along. In story #1, it's mostly static.

The plot moves along on story #2, with an early terrific mystery. The undercover work Bosch undertakes here is great, showing the bright, strong man we know and love. There is more interaction with other police characters and with sources and witnesses. These scenes are good, and almost always interesting.

Bosch's half-brother, Mickey Haller, is brought in to help Bosch in story #1, along with Haller's investigator, Cisco. I've never been a fan of Haller, and courtroom scenes are leaden with formalities and points we have seen too many times before. There are almost no surprises for such a large number of pages of prose. I find this to be true of most court-based noir. Court-noir is dull, slow, dull, constipated, dull.

There are some twists in the second half of the book, and most of the best quotes come in the last few chapters.

Not Connelly's best work, for sure. Perhaps we can blame Bosch being old, and treated that way. Spenser was never treated this way by Robert B. Parker, perhaps Connelly should take note.




Quotes I like:

Bosch knew there were two kinds of truth in this world. The truth that was the unalterable bedrock of one’s life and mission. And the other, malleable truth of politicians, charlatans, corrupt lawyers, and their clients, bent and molded to serve whatever purpose was at hand.

---

... in my rarely humble opinion ... 3/4 of America's worst problems are due to someone making too much money on them ...
Bosch Was reminded of Jerry Edgar’s sermon about the [opiod addiction] crisis being too big to shut down because everybody was making money on it.

---
Bosch as a teen:
As he traveled from one bed to another, the one thing he carried from place to place was a book about the Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone.

Bosch didn’t remember the title of the book anymore but he remembered many of the ideas the man espoused. Over time he had cemented them like a mason into his own belief system and they formed the brick foundation of who he was as both a detective and a man.

Livingstone had said sympathy was no substitute for action. That was an essential brick in Bosch’s wall. He had built himself as a man of action and, at the moment when the integrity of his life’s work had been called into question by a man on death rovv, he had chosen to turn his sympathy for Elizabeth Clayton into action.

... She had tapped into a need he had to reach out and help someone, whether they welcomed his help or not. He was sure that if he sat down with a shrink for an hour, maybe his longtime LAPD counselor Carmen Hinojos there would be a whole raft of psychological underpinnings to his actions.

Harry Bosch just can't walk away from Law Enforcement. He's a volunteer at the San Fernando Police Department, working unsolved cases, but gets called out on a case that's anything but cold. A double homicide, father and son, at a local pharmacy, linked to an international drug operation. He's torn though, between this and a case from his past. New evidence means a killer he put on death row thirty years ago, Preston Borders, could walk free, but Bosch is as convinced of his guilt now as he was then. Borders and his lawyer claim Bosch planted key evidence, and Harry battles to prove his innocence, with the help of his half-brother, Mickey Haller, or risk watching a murderer walk free. When the two cases intertwine, putting Bosch's reputation, and his life, firmly in harms way, he has as big a fight as he's ever faced, if he's to walk away with either.

Fans of Harry Bosch have an idea what to expect after following his life and career for so long, and this latest instalment doesn't disappoint. The real beauty of this series for me lies in its continued freshness, despite how long we've been along for the ride. Harry Bosch has evolved over the series. He's principled yet fallible, stubbornly loyal to those close to him. With a veteran character like this, it has to feel plausible that he's still out there fighting the good fight after all these years, and that's exactly Connelly achieves. The two cases that form the backbone of the story play out at a perfect pace. Familiar faces like Haller, Cisco and Lucia Soto play their part to a tee, and Connelly brings it all together beautifully with a few curve balls thrown in for good measure.

Harry Bosch has been known to posit observations of the ‘there are two kinds of…’ type, as the book’s title indicates. It puts him at odds with his half-brother, Mickey Haller, though, who lives in the defence lawyer’s very different world of words. Michael Connelly, by contrast, has more room to exercise questions of meaning, intent, and how differently truths can be articulated. This most recent novel, which unites Haller and Bosch, is after bigger game.
Harry is still a welcome volunteer working cold cases in the small, sometimes sleepy, sheriff’s office in San Fernando, and the first of two plots begins a tale which extends back into Harry’s past to worry his present. Called into a homicide at a local pharmacy in which the two pharmacists have been murdered, Harry finds himself leading the investigation on grounds of experience, but hands the role on to his colleague, Bella Lourdes, nominally because she is bilingual in Spanish. He sees more, and is more careful with procedure, than are the San Fernando cops; his role is in one way more that of an instructor than anything else. Along the way Connelly is able to point out the results for policing in the cuts that followed the financial crisis of 2008. This is not his only reference to the breakdown of public services. There is no mention of the attack on the poor and their healthcare, but it is tacitly evident. There are also some interesting tells in Connelly’s vocabulary: the police chief refers to the murdered pharmacists as ‘citizens’, not ‘vics’. And, along the way we learn that San Fernando is so small it depends on LA for forensic analysis.
But there are darker reasons for him to keep a certain distance: one of his old cases is about to be reopened by lawyers for a man who has been on death row for decades, now claiming that Bosch tampered with evidence. Bosch needs Mickey, because his will stand accused of a serious crime. That is easy enough, but the refusal of his former colleagues to stand by him is more than difficult. New DNA evidence has turned up, and it is impossible that the still-sealed evidence box can have been tampered with.
While his attorney goes into action, Harry accepts an assignment to go undercover to try to find out why the pharmacists were murdered, and how the criminal empire creating false prescriptions of opioids functions. To add to the tension, Harry goes undercover without telling anybody not directly involved, including his daughter, Maddy, now away at university. Lest anyone think Connelly, himself a former journalist, is merely boosting the press, they may wish to wait until late on in the book to get a good look at manipulations of reporters by figures at some distance from newspapers. As kinds of truth go, there are a variety of shades of grey.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Orion Publishing Group for an advance copy of Two Kinds of Truth, the 22nd novel in the detective Harry Bosch series.

Harry is in a meeting in the San Fernando police department where he now works as a volunteer on cold cases with his ex LAPD partner, Lucia Soto, her new partner and a deputy DA from the Conviction Integrity Unit about Preston Borders' appeal against his 30 year old death penalty conviction so, smelling a stitch up, he doesn't hesitate to walk out when he is asked to help his San Fernando colleagues with a double murder at the local pharmacy. Both cases turn out to be a lot more something than the original nothing they appear to be.

It has been a while since I spent time with Harry and I'd forgotten how thought provoking and compulsive the series is. Mr Connelly, as ever, manages to provide food for thought wrapped up in great storytelling and I am in awe of his skill.

The pharmacy shooting kicks off much of the action in the novel as nothing is as it first seems and widens out to cover some of the ills currently affecting American society. It is informative without preaching and in a very practical way exposes the problem. On a more personal note it and a cold case Harry has on the back burner teach him some very valuable lessons in making assumptions. It is a change to see him humbled.

Preston Borders and his appeal present a more cerebral problem. Harry knows he didn't frame him so it's a matter of trying to work out how the evidence was tampered with. The solution is ingenious and the court hearing which shows Micky Haller at his conniving best is masterful. I love it. I also love the dichotomy in police thinking. The LAPD detectives think that physical evidence trumps everything else so Harry's word and 30 year record of success mean nothing to them while the small town cops who have only known him a short time support him wholeheartedly. It made me think.

Throughout it all Harry is Harry, dogged, tough and smart with his own moral compass. He is a hard character to love due to his nature but after so many novels he's an old friend I never tire of.

Two Kinds of Truth is another excellent addition to the series which I can heartily recommend.

I was lucky to get an advanced copy of the book via netgalley and I'm glad that I did. Now I know that the Harry Bosch series has been around for a long time and I have read some of them but I haven't read them all, it's been a long time since I read the last one but that didn't make any difference. Sometimes if a book is part of a series and I haven't read the others it can put me off but in this it didn't make any difference that I wasn't up to date.

I started the book and found myself straight into it alongside Harry who is currently working cold cases, using an old jail cell as his office. He is visited by his former colleagues to inform him of new evidence in a 30 year old case which means that he locked up the wrong man... or did he? Tie both his current cold case, his former case and then add in a live double murder case and it means one thing.... it's a bloody brilliant read!

Fast paced and the way each of the cases being worked are merged it really is brilliant, I needed to keep reading and find out what was going to happen, I love the way that you get to know and care about what's happening very quickly. It was written very clearly... sometimes in books with multiple cases it can be a bit confusing but this was easy to follow.

I don't want to give away any spoilers but just recommend that if you love a good book... even if you've never heard of Harry Bosch before then give it a read. The official release date is 31st October 2017 so put the date in you diary.

This is the latest and thrilling addition to the terrific Harry Bosch series set in LA and San Fernando. Harry is working as a volunteer cold case cop at SFPD trying to get to bottom of the missing, presumed dead, Esme Tavares, when he receives an upsetting visit from the recently created LAPD Conviction Integrity Unit. This consists of his old partner, Lucia Soto, Bob Tapscott and Deputy DA, Alex Kennedy. They inform him that a death row murderer, Preston Borders, is going to be freed, as new DNA evidence points to sexual predator and rapist, Lucas John Olmer, now deceased, as the killer of the woman Borders was convicted of. There are additional vibes that suggest they think Harry and his now dead partner, Frank Sheehan, were responsible for serious misconduct that resulted in this miscarriage of justice. Harry tries to get his head round these astonishing developments, he is absolutely convinced they got the right man. So what is going on?

In the meantime, there have been two fatal shootings of a father and son, both pharmacists at the La Farmacia Familio, in San Fernando. It looks as if these were professional hits, with particular venom aimed at the son. It seems that the son might be involved in gangs which resulted in the hits. However, this turns out to be wide of the mark as Bosch and the SFPD follow up on a complaint made by the dead son about a clinic and the pharmacy's role in a pill shills scam run by the wanted Santos, and Russian criminal elements using desperate and vulnerable enslaved prescription drugs addicts. The DEA are interested in getting to Santos, and want Bosch's help to do this. Despite advice to the contrary, Bosch agrees because he wants to secure justice. At the same time, Preston Borders and his lawyer, Lance Cronyn, point the finger at Bosch as a corrupt officer who planted the evidence that convicted Borders. Bosch is going to need help, and calls on his half brother, Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer. Haller and Bosch begin to pull at the threads of the evidence that appears to clear Preston Borders and begin to unravel a sinister conspiracy for which Bosch is merely the fall guy. However, the allegations cross over into Bosch's role in the pill shill scam, putting him in deadly danger.

By now, Bosch is a battered survivor who still retains his ideals and his determination to secure justice. In this novel, I really felt Harry's tiredness and recognition that justice can, at times, only be short term, as it may possible to get the perpetrators, but not those who control the drug scams and make millions from it; and that shutting down an operation is not enough, as replacement scams emerge. Harry uses his earthquake fund, putting his personal faith and humanity into helping a woman addict who has faced the worst of times. It is a salutory experience for Bosch to observe how those who know him, including his nearest and dearest, still entertain a glimmer of suspicion about his guilt and corruption. However, if there is one thing that Harry has and that is ability to forgive, whilst on occasion using it to call in favours. As ever, this is brilliant crime fiction from an expert. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Orion for an ARC.