Blue Wolf Reviews

Tag: Ballard

  • Desert Star

    Desert Star

    Because he was a former Police Reporter, Michael Connelly has an innate understanding of procedures and strategies used by Police. This gives his novels such an authentic feel that the reader becomes engrossed in the pathways taken by the Law agents, and the care with which they must proceed. Add to this the characters of Renee Ballard and Harry Bosch, who we have followed and embraced, and the reader is ready to settle down for a serious session.

    Both these officers have been coerced into returning to a special branch of Policing. They have agreed to join a “Cold Case” team. For Renee it is a promotion and for Harry, a chance to finally see justice for a murdered family. Desert Star moves Ballard and Bosch into the fascinating world of forensic science which is paramount in these cold cases. It is amazing to see what can be discovered from a few drops of urine left at a murder scene, and a half palm print left on a windowsill years’ before.

    Harry has always struggled to conform to rules, but his thorough research and inability to leave any stone unturned in an investigation, make his input invaluable. The most innocuous object could trigger his focus and open a whole new aspect of the case. Renee has set down rules which she wishes the volunteers to abide by and all, but Harry, can be relied on.

    The characters are realistic, the writing crisp and clear and at no stage does the reader have to check on who or what is happening. Michael is a master Crime fiction author who always enables the reader to unfurl the case along with the Police. There is drama, humour and satisfaction in this wonderfully crafted novel.

  • The Dark Hours

    The Dark Hours

    Bosch is back as the sidekick to Renee Ballard in this latest release from Michael Connelly based in the current times of the pandemic and the riots in Hollywood.

    Dark Hours sees Renee Ballard finishing her shift and heading out into the revelry of New Year’s Eve, just in time to witness the traditional pistol shooting into the sky, that marks the end of one year and the beginning of the new, except that for one shop owner, the new year will never arrive.

    Murder has been done and as she looks at the case fully she realizes it has similarities to one Bosch was working on some time ago. She is also involved with a case of serial rape with offenders who will not hesitate to kill.

    Undermining her love of her work is the serious challenge of being on the night shift, a place she should not be, facing the direct chauvinistic behavior of the other members of the force, who she realizes cannot be trusted as they have their own agenda.

    She calls once again on the help of Harry Bosch a man she would trust with her life and the only one she feels she can talk with and get an honest option on these two cases. Bosch, now retired is bored to bits with this thing called retirement and no matter how he tries to move on, his first and last love is policing, being a detective. When Ballard arrives asking for his input he jumps at the chance.

    But as Ballard gets closer to the case she finds she is suspended from duty, but refuses to give upon the case of the rapists. After much introspection she makes the decision to retire, hang up her badge as the soul destroying workplace and other force members is making her life far too hard.

    As the case she is working clandestinely begins to come together she and Bosch have to once again back each other to the very limit, as the suspects in the rape cases are becoming more brutal as they realize their chances of being caught are negligible.

    As with all Connelly books he sets the scene in real time adding to the reality of the storyline that pushes the limits time and time again as Bosch and Ballard have to pit their formidable wits and skill to solve the crime.

    Brilliant, engaging and another terrific thriller from Michael Connelly.

  • The Night Fire A Ballard and Bosch Thriller

    The Night Fire A Ballard and Bosch Thriller

    After the funeral of an old friend John Jack Thompson, a man who was Bosch’s mentor when he was a rookie homicide cop, Harry Bosch, now recently retired, is asked to take care of a Murder Book kept by Thompson, when he left the department many years before. Bosch wonders why Thompson kept the Murder Book and what is in it that he expects Bosch to discover and finish. After all the murder of a young man who was dealing drugs was more than 20 years old!

    And so, begins the latest in the gripping Harry Bosch series from Michael Connelly, with Bosch now mentoring Renee Ballard, an intelligent, first rate detective with that special fire in her belly for ensuring a case is closed, done properly and delivering answers.

    What begins as a somewhat reluctant investigation into a case that was a very cold case, quickly begins to look very much like something else entirely, causing Bosch to rethink his feeling and beliefs of his mentor John Jack, and stretches both Ballard and Bosch’s expertise to new limits.

    Ballard gets sent to a late-night arson case where a homeless man is burned to death. As the details of the case unfold, both Bosch and Ballard begin to suspect that perhaps this latest death has strong links to the past, links to the more than 20-year-old murder in John Jacks’ Murder Book. All Connelly’s novels consist of more than one crime scenario with The Night Fire being no exception.

    Working tirelessly to discover what was behind the unsolved murder all those years ago, digging up secrets from the past, which eventually lead inside a crime syndicate that means business, and are happy to remove whatever is in their way, in order to get what they want, pushes both Bosch and Ballard into terrible danger.

    Yet again they form a formidable team, that of the veteran cop whose seen it all and a ferociously intelligent young woman moving up into the darkly masculine world of crime investigation.

    Well-constructed with the high standard of detail that has come to be an integral component of Connelly’s work, The Night Fire will enthral until the final word, which is as always not what would be expected, and leaves a thread dangling as a tempter for the next Ballard and Bosch novel.