Review: THE DROP, Michael Connelly

• 
  This edition an e-book made available on Libby by my local library
  
• Published 2011
• The Drop is the 24th novel by American crime author Michael Connelly, and the fifteenth novel featuring Los Angeles Police Department detective Harry Bosch.
• author website 

Synopsis (author website )

Harry Bosch has been given three years before he must retire from the LAPD, and he wants cases more fiercely than ever. In one morning, he gets two.

DNA from a 1989 rape and murder matches a 29-year-old convicted rapist. Was he an eight-year-old killer or has something gone terribly wrong in the new Regional Crime Lab? The latter possibility could compromise all of the lab’s DNA cases currently in court. 

Then Bosch and his partner are called to a death scene fraught with internal politics. Councilman Irvin Irving’s son jumped or was pushed from a window at the Chateau Marmont. Irving, Bosch’s longtime nemesis, has demanded that Harry handle the investigation. Relentlessly pursuing both cases, Bosch makes two chilling discoveries: a killer operating unknown in the city for as many as three decades, and a political conspiracy that goes back into the dark history of the police department.

My Take

Two very different stories in this novel,  with Harry Bosch under political pressure to focus on resolving whether a recent death is murder or suicide. 

Harry's partner gets very frustrated when Harry keeps excluding him from decision making. The partner does the unforgiveable and leaks bit of their investigation to the press.

Meanwhile there is a case that Harry really wants to focus on.

A good read.

My rating: 4.5

I've also read

• THE OVERLOOK
• THE BRASS VERDICT
• THE CONCRETE BLONDE
• 4.3, THE REVERSAL
• 4.4, SUICIDE RUN
• 4.4, ANGLE OF INVESTIGATION
• 4.5, THE POET
• 4.5, FAIR WARNING
• 4.5, THE NIGHT FIRE  
  

Review: THE NIGHT WE LOST HIM, Laura Dave

• 
  This edition an e-book on Kindle (Amazon)
  
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0C1RV95XK
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin (September 17, 2024)
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 346 pages

 Synopsis (Amazon)

Sometimes those we love hide the darkest secrets…

One beautiful Californian evening, a wealthy businessman falls to his death from his secluded cliff-top house onto the rocks below.

A tragic accident? Or murder?

Nora and her half-brother Sam suspect it may be the latter, and team up to uncover the truth of what really happened that night.

But their relationship has never been easy, and it is about to be tested to the limit as they start to question how well either of them really knew their elusive father.

Unravelling his mysterious past takes them back to a world they knew nothing about, to a tangled love affair and a web of relationships that other people would far rather stay buried...

Filled with passion, intrigue, lies, and dark, dark family secrets, The Night We Lost Him is a page turning mystery you won’t ever want to put down.

My Take

Nora doesn't really want to believe that her father Liam, usually so sure-footed, slipped to his death from outside his house. Nor does she want to believe it was suicide. So was he pushed? That is what her half-brother Sam believes. But his twin Tommy thinks they should leave it all alone.

Their attempt to unravel what happened is hampered by the fact that Liam's body was cremated, and also by the complexities of his multiple marriages and the fact that they don't know everything and that people don't give them straight answers when they ask questions.

The book is written in two time frames: the present and the immediate past, and then what happened when Liam was a young man. And then about half way through the book, you, the reader, realise that you know some things that Nora and Sam don't.

At the same time as they are unravelling the past both Nora and Sam are dealing with issues in their own lives, that add a poignancy to the story.

Recommended.

My Rating: 4.6

I've also read

4.6, THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME