What a thrill, as well as an honour to be kicking off the blog tour today for Michael Connelly’s latest book, Dark, Sacred Night!
In this police procedural, Connelly teams up his well-known and familiar detective Harry Bosch, who’s now left the police force, with his fairly new character, LAPD detective Renée Ballard.
After a run-in with her previous superior, Ballard’s now working the ‘late show’ i.e. the night shift, at the Hollywood Station. One night she’s sitting at her desk, minding her own business when she hears a noise, indicating that someone else is nosing around in the work area. It’s nobody she recognises, but it turns out to be none other than Harry Bosch … and so begins what we hope will be a long-standing and successful partnership.
Bosch is looking into a cold case that he just can’t let go of. Nine years ago a young girl was murdered and her body left on a trash heap. Her murderer was never apprehended and there’s just something about this case that’s latched onto Harry’s psyche. So much so, that the victim’s mom, a recovered addict is now living with him, temporarily, a contentious issue which has caused his own daughter to keep her distance.
I haven’t read a Harry Bosch book for quite some time and it seems that the aging cop is mellowing slightly. That said though, he also seems to have had quite enough of propriety and structure and is quite ready to go out and do his own thing, free of the constraints that being part of the police force brings. While Ballard is at first not too sure what to make of Bosch, she slowly comes to understand him and his work ethic and admires and respects where he’s coming from.
This promises to be a stellar tag team, complete with witty, sharp banter and underlying care and admiration. There’s a lot of cop-speak and terminology that might not be familiar to those who don’t read this genre often. But it’s not lost in translation and pretty easy to know exactly what’s being said. Although this is the second of Connelly’s books featuring Renée Ballard, there’s enough background given to provide the reader with sufficient information as to why she’s landed up working the late shift in this particular division … it’s also plenty info to make one go back and read that first book if you haven’t already done so!
Michael Connelly doesn’t disappoint in Dark Sacred Night. He describes society’s underbelly – a dark pit that’s inhabited only by a particular type of individual, to whom the night is sacred, as that’s when they’re able to commit their most disturbing, deranged, delusional deeds. That’s when their madness comes alive – in the midst of the dark, sacred night!
Thank you to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers for inviting me along for the blog tour, and reminding me of how brilliant Michael Connelly is! Follow the blog tour until 24 May, and see what other book bloggers have to say …
Jan's Book Buzz 
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