Tag / Ballard

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Book 50 (of 52) – The Waiting

The Waiting – Michael Connelly

When a petty thief steals Ballard’s badge and gun from her van while she’s surfing, she turns to her friend Harry Bosch to help her get them back.  When the trail leads them to a group of domestic terrorists who plan to shoot up Santa Monica pier on a busy holiday weekend, they turn to the FBI for help, but the blowback puts Ballard in hot water with her captain.  Meanwhile, a recent arrest collected DNA that puts Ballard’s Open-Unsolved Unit on the track of a serial rapist from 20 years earlier and Bosch’s daughter joins the team with a hot lead, the identity of the Black Dahlia’s killer.

The sixth, and, to date, final entry of Michael Connelly’s Renée Ballard series, The Waiting continues with the changes introduced in the last book that helped to land the Ballard series on Amazon Prime.  Bosch plays a lesser role in this go around, though his daughter joins the team to help pick up some of the slack.  I’m not sure if this is the end of the road or, having just been released in 2024, I’ve just caught up to the current release cycle, but I hope there is more to come.  If not, I may be forced to go backwards and start the Bosch series at the beginning.

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Book 38 (of 52) – Desert Star

Desert Star – Michael Connelly

A year after quitting LAPD, Detective Renée Ballard was brought back to run a revamped cold case unit.  With a rag tag bunch of civilian volunteers, Ballard reaches out former detective Harry Bosch, using a case from his past as the bait.  Focusing on the death of a councilman’s sister as a teen, they get lucky with some DNA that would have been useless at the time, finding a match to another cold case.  Working the two, they are able to uncover a suspect, one close to their vest.  Meanwhile, Bosch works his own case, tracking his suspect down to Florida.

In the fifth entry of his Renée Ballard series, Desert Star, Michael Connelly continues to team her up with his old Harry Bosch character, first introduced in 1992’s The Black Echo.  At the end of this book, Connelly seems to indicate that Bosch is on his way out, but there is another entry in the Ballard series that he appears in and another mainline Bosch book due out later this year, so who knows what the future holds.  This book was the basis for the first season of the Ballard series on Amazon Prime, which I stopped watching after two episodes once I found out and will now pick back up.

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Book 6 (of 52) – The Dark Hours

The Dark Hours – Michael Connelly

2020 has been a dark year for the LAPD, as Covid and the public’s waning trust in the police have affected morale.  As midnight strikes to close out the year. Detective Renée Ballard is out on patrol, waiting for the latest attack from the Midnight Men, a duo who use the excitement of a holiday as a cover to rape an unsuspecting woman.  While waiting, she gets called to a murder scene, a former banger who bought his way out years ago.  Working both cases solo, with help from former detective Harry Bosch, she finds the only thing bigger than her desire to close the cases is her desire to leave the department, and its bullshit, behind.

In the fourth entry of his Renée Ballard series, The Dark Hours, Michael Connelly continues to team her up with his old Harry Bosch character, first introduced in 1992’s The Black Echo.  The two seem likely to continue working together, so I imagine any future entries in the series (of which there are currently two more) will continue the pairing.  The next entry, Desert Star, is the basis for the first season of the Ballard series on Amazon Prime, which I am two episodes into as of this writing.  Hopefully that isn’t a mistake on my part.