In this Harry finds a new partner Rene Ballard who gets involved with helping him on a cold case. Meanwhile Harry has another case that takes up his time. It seems that raking up old coals can bring to light vested interest that don’t like things to be brought to light. It ends up that each saves each other’s bacon that cements their relationship. All together a most exciting story.

Connelly (recently awarded the CWA Diamond Dagger for his body of work) seems to be tiring of the San Fernando Police; tiring is the important word, as he's feeling his age and knows that he's begun making mistakes. He finds himself working with the woman introduced by last year's story, The Late Show. Hence the new series 'Bosch and Ballard'. Each of the detectives has baggage left from childhood. It's neither an easy pairing nor an easy ride, as Bosch finds himself on the outskirts of law enforcement.
Everybody counts, or nobody does. Bosch has a recovering opioid addict in his house, and it's her daughter's death that he is trying to solve. Renee Ballard is working the night shift, and following Bosch's cold case. She calls is the hobby case, and shows the same willingness Bosch has for running toward danger. He has a heroic tendency to rescue his partners, and she is one of them. A good feature is that the book sees Ballard from her own point of view.
Often the stabilizing influences in a new series bring in new characters, and readers have to find their own way through a lot of the bits and pieces that new series introduce. I am one of Connelly's admirers, but--really--you have to pay a great deal of attention to detail to be able to follow the various plots of this book. And there are a variety of what might be police anecdotes about what kinds of problems officers are called out to solve. The desnouement teeters on the brink of unbelievable, but that's part of what we go to crime fiction to find.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Orion for an advance copy of Dark Sacred Night, the first novel to feature an investigative collaboration between Detective Renée Ballard of LAPD and Detective Harry Bosch, currently a part timer with the San Fernando PD.

Ballard works night shift or the late show as it's known in LAPD, a solitary job with its slow times so she's immediately curious when she finds Bosch rummaging in the department's filing cabinets. He explains about his "hobby case", looking for the killer of teenage runaway Daisy Clayton back in 2009 and soon she's as involved as he is.

I thoroughly enjoyed Dark Sacred Night with its mixture of procedure, or in Bosch's case non-procedure, mystery, thrills, tension and character. Mr Connelly is currently peerless in his ability to weave so many disparate elements together seamlessly into a very readable novel. While Daisy Clayton's killer is very much at the forefront of their minds the investigation has to take a backseat to their regular jobs so the reader is treated not just to that investigation but Bosch's efforts to solve the cold case murder of Uncle Murda, a San Fernando gangbanger killed 10 years previously, and a series of vignettes as Ballard responds as and when required. All of it has something to say about Los Angeles, its denizens and lifestyle with some of it amusing, some of it sad but all of it hugely enjoyable. It's like a massive tableau of life with the reader being offered glimpses.

I said it about The Late Show and I'll say it again here. I love the tone of the narrative with its dry recounting of facts and the cops' acceptance of whatever is thrown at them. That's not to say they don't care, more that it's often just another obstacle they can't change to overcome in their dogged pursuit of justice. The arrival of Harry Bosch, however, brings a more emotionally charged atmosphere to the novel as he identifies with the victims and survivors.

Dark Sacred Night is a great read which I have no hesitation in recommending.

I'd have liked a bit more Bosch in this... that might be my only complaint.
Took off nicely where the last Bosch book left us.
There was a great mix of current case and cold case.
I liked it's pace,the familiar and not to familiar faces. Some interesting characters,and a crime solved I didn't guess at.
Nicely done.

"I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship". If you have seen the movie Casablanca, then you know this classic line. And, it's such a perfect way to describe the paring of Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch.

FULL REVIEW TO COME ON PUB.DATE!

Michael Connelly brings us the second in the LAPD detective Renee Ballard series and he brings in Harry Bosch, a man Renee knows nothing about. Renee has been shunted onto The Late Show, the Hollywood nightshift, after an injustice earlier, but oddly enough she has settled in there and somehow it suits her. Her partner is on bereavement leave and she is on her own when she is called to a home where a woman's body, heavily decomposing, is discovered. It is assumed to be murder but it does not take Renee long to ascertain that it was an accident, with a starved cat feeding on the corpse. On returning to write up her report, she finds Harry rifling through a file cabinet of a colleague, and throws him out. However, her curiosity is aroused, she cannot help herself as she tries to find out who Harry is and what he was doing there.

Harry has the traumatised Elizabeth Clayton, a recovering drug addict, temporarily living with him, someone he met on his last case. Nine years ago, Elizabeth's 15 year old daughter, Daisy, was brutally murdered, her body bleached and discarded like trash in an alley. This spurs Harry to look into the cold case, as he witnesses Elizabeth's unrelieved grief destroying her. Having Elizabeth staying with him is not ideal, as his daughter, Maddie, is refusing to visit him while Elizabeth is there. Once Renee learns of Harry's investigations into finding Daisy's killer, she wants in. It soon becomes transparent that there is much the pair have in common, a dogged determination to work cases that borders on obsession and a penchant to bend the rules. In the meantime, both have other demands on their time. Harry as a reserve at SFD is looking into a cold case murder of the 52 year old gang member of the Varrio San Fer 13, Cristobel Vega, gaining insight into what happened after locating a witness, only to find the case exploding out of his control. Renee finds herself with the horrifying task of searching for the dismembered body parts of a murder victim at a refuse dump. As Renee and Harry plough through the mountains of information looking for a lead on Daisy's killer, the truth proves to be elusive. Will they succeed in finding the killer?

I did not expect Renee and Harry to be working together so soon, but after an initial awkwardness the two, unsurprisingly, mesh well, something they will sorely need as each finds themselves in life threatening and dangerous scenarios. Harry's future with SFD is uncertain, but what is clear is that this is not going to stop him doing what he does best, and it looks like we will see him pairing up with Renee again in the future. Connelly once again displays his attention to detail in police procedures, showing us that his research is demonstrably impressive. I loved this addition to the Renee and Harry series, but there is a strong part of me that wished I could have seen far more of Renee prior to her working with Harry. As usual, Connelly gives us a superb crime thriller with his trademark aplomb. Highly recommended! Many thanks to Orion for an ARC.