Desert Star (A Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch Novel)
A year has passed since LAPD detective Renée Ballard quit the force in the face of misogyny, demoralization, and endless red tape. But after the chief of police himself tells her she can write her own ticket within the department, Ballard takes back her badge, leaving "the Late Show" to rebuild and lead the cold case unit at the elite Robbery-Homicide Division.
For years, Harry Bosch has been working a case that haunts him--the murder of an entire family by a psychopath who still walks free. Ballard makes Bosch an offer: come volunteer as an investigator in her new Open-Unsolved Unit, and he can pursue his "white whale" with the resources of the LAPD behind him.
First priority for Ballard is to clear the unsolved rape and murder of a sixteen-year-old girl. The decades-old case is essential to the councilman who supported re-forming the unit, and who could shutter it again--the victim was his sister. When Ballard gets a "cold hit" connecting the killing to a similar crime, proving that a serial predator has been at work in the city for years, the political pressure has never been higher. To keep momentum going, she has to pull Bosch off his own investigation, the case that is the consummation of his lifelong mission.
The two must put aside old resentments and new tensions to run to ground not one but two dangerous killers who have operated with brash impunity. In what may be his most gripping and profoundly moving book yet, Michael Connelly shows once again why he has been dubbed "one of the greatest crime writers of all time" (Ryan Steck, Crimereads).
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Community Reviews
Councilman Jake Pearlman later gets elected into office. One of the first things he does is to reinstate the defunct Open-Unsolved Unit. There is a hidden agenda, of course. Councilman Jake Parkmanâs kid sister was murdered and never solved. This is where Bosch comes in. Ballard wants Bosch to come to join her team of volunteers and help her solve that case. In return, Ballard will pull all the murder books on the Gallagher case. Six books for four murders. Officially, Bosch could go back to the one murder case that forever evade him - Finbar McShane. Bosch knows McShane had wiped out the whole Gallagher family in 2013 and buried them in the desert. Now he just has to prove it. Being on Ballardâs team will give him access to do it.
The first and primary case the entire unit has to solve first is "who murdered Councilman Jake Pearlman's sister? This has never been solved and now that he's councilman, Pearlman reinstates the once disbanded cold case unit and his unsolved case takes top priority. If Ballard and her team could solve that case, she is sure Councilman Pearlman will continue to fund the unit. But will all Ballard's volunteers play nicely? Especially one who was forced upon her team and the ever-cantankerous Bosch. Dangle that Gallagher case in front of Bosch and he will get the job done! Even if it kills him, first!
Plot: 3.5/5
Pace: 4/5
Character Development/Relationship: 4/5
Writing Style: 3.5/5
Enjoyment: 4/5
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