THE BLACK BOX

THE BLACK BOX by Michael Connelly

From the book jacket:

Harry Bosch first encountered Anneke Jespersen in a dark alley.  She'd been shot, execution-style, on one of the most notorious nights in Los Angeles history, a night when the city burned and the police protected no one.  Anneke carried a journalist's credentials, and Bosch assumed she had come to the center of the riots in search of a story.  In the wake of the smoke and chaos, his investigation was reassigned and went nowhere.  Jespersen's murder was never solved.

Nearing the twentieth anniversary of the riots, the Open-Unsolved Unit is tasked with clearing cases from that era.  And in a case that he has never been able to forget, Bosch finds something new:  the gun that killed Anneke Jespersen was also used in other crimes years later.  Starting with a prison visit to a murderer who is hoping for parole, Bosch uses every bit of leverage and skill he has acquired in his decades on the force to pry open the case and get the sliver of a lead.  He begins his hunt anew.

The investigation will stretch from the roughest neighborhoods of Los Angeles to distant battlegrounds where Jespersen once covered bloody conflicts.  What really brought her to Los Angeles?  Was her own drive for justice a match for Bosch's?  And in a new age, will Bosch find the "black box," the one piece of evidence that pulls the case together and makes justice possible at last?

Another fantastic Harry Bosch book.  I love how Harry can take a tiny bit of information and from it, develop an entire scenario of a crime.  He's not afraid to go after a possible murderer with only a minuscule piece of evidence and then build his case on the spot.  He's always thinking and plotting, even when the story isn't exactly what he thought it would be - he can change direction without skipping a beat.

In this book, Harry gets himself in a lot of trouble, more than I've seen in any of the previous books of this series.  But he never, ever gives up.

This is the last book written so far in the Harry Bosch series.  I've read them all in order in the past month or so.  I can feel myself going into Harry withdrawal.  I wonder if there's such a thing as Harry Bosch Anonymous - for addicts like me?  I'm sure there will be another Bosch book, but waiting is going to be so hard.