The Wrong Side of Goodbye ~ Michael Connelly

Connelly, Michael. 2016. The Wrong Side of Goodbye. Hachette Audio.  ASIN: B01K3EKBXS.

I took a break from the 16 book Gabriel Allon Series by Daniel Silva that I’m listening to on my commute and checked out Michael Connelly’s latest Hieronimus Bosch title, The Wrong Side of Goodbye. The author has been writing this series since the early 1990s and it started 21 books ago with Black Echo.  I’ve found, however, that you don’t necessarily need to read all the books in order. Some of them are connected, and you can tell which ones by reading the summaries.  This series has also been made into a TV show on Amazon, starring Titus Welliver.

Harry Bosch was a homicide detective for the Los Angeles police department, and was kind of a maverick: not always following the rules to get the job done, and getting on the wrong side of his superiors.  Over the years he as been transferred, demoted, retired, and re-hired, and now works part-time with the San Fernando Police Department, while also pursuing cases as a private investigator.

In this latest book, two cases are going on at the same time: a serial rapist, called the “Screen Cutter” has been targeting young women in San Fernando, and an aging billionaire hires Bosch to try to locate an heir, conceived in a liaison over 50 years previously.  Bosch juggles both cases and, as it turns out, runs into trouble trying to work both.

Bosch is a rather cynical, melancholy fellow – and who wouldn’t be after all he’s seen in his career as a law enforcement officer.  But he has a strong sense of justice and is more softhearted than you would expect, especially for the victims of crime.  He is also a veteran of the Vietnam War, and some of his experience during that war are brought to the forefront in his work on the P.I. case.  The story flows seamlessly and is hugely entertaining.  The narrator, Titus Welliver, the actor who plays Bosch in the TV series, does an excellent job, with a gravelly voice for Bosch, and enough difference in other characters to make the story flow effortlessly.

I’ve hunted down the audio-book for the first title in the series from another library; they are pretty old by now and not every library carries them all.  I’m looking forward to that one and learning how Harry got his start as a character in this best-selling series!

p.s. Michael Connelly also writes books starring Harry Bosch's half-brother, Mickey Haller, a defense attorney, the most famous of which was made into a movie starring Matthew McConaughey called The Lincoln Lawyer - a very good film.....