After I finished the first book in this series that brings together retired LAPD detective Harry Bosch and current detective Renee Ballard, I knew I wanted to read more. Admittedly, I wasn't all that taken with Ballard in The Late Show, but the aging Harry has never failed to reel me in. It's much the same here; I'm still not an all-out Ballard fan, but by golly, the story is so good that it didn't matter. And, the more I learn about Ballard the more appealing she's becoming (I very much like the way she interacts with Bosch). In fact, by the end of this one I felt more attuned to Ballard than to Bosch.
After her complaint of sexual harassment at her old job fell flat, she was reassigned to the night shift, where she's been for three years now. With her partner on bereavement leave, she's been working solo. One night, Bosch wanders in, claiming to be looking for information on the murder of 15-year-old Daisy Clayton nine years earlier. Intrigued by both the case and Bosch himself, Ballard decides to help and gets permission to look into what's now a cold case - pretty much working in her spare time.
Of course, both Bosch and Ballard are working on other cases, and those stories get interwoven via chapters that shift in perspective from one to the other. Readers also learn more of what has shaped each of their characters, from Ballard's childhood to Bosch's shaky standing with the LAPD.
As the spare-time investigation of Daisy's murder gets under way, it's interesting to watch the evolution of their interactions as Ballard at first takes issue with Bosch's so-what attitude toward bending the rules (unlike her, he's got nothing much to lose). Concurrently, Bosch gains a bit of respect for her position - and in the end, they meet in the middle in a sort of tentative acceptance (and a partnership that, I presume, will continue in future books). There's nothing tentative about my opinion of that: Bring 'em on!
Dark Sacred Night by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown and Co., October 2018); 448 pp.
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