Michael Connelly shows yet again that he continues to have his finger firmly on the raw pulse of Los Angeles, striking gold with The Waiting, a riveting mystery that further establishes Renée Ballard as his protagonist of the future alongside the beloved Harry Bosch, in addition to the uprising of another character who gets a surprising amount of screentime.
The last time Renée Ballard served as the main character in one of Connelly’s books was back in his 2022 novel Desert Star. She did have an extended cameo in Resurrection Walk (2023), which kept the focus on Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer himself, and former LAPD detective Harry Bosch, but The Waiting marks her return as the main focal point, and pretty much from the very beginning, things don’t quite go her way.
Ballard’s bad week starts with the veteran detective, who now heads up the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit, finding out that her gun, badge, and ID were stolen from her Jeep while she was out surfing. That’s a pain, to be sure, but unfortunately for Ballard, there’s a long history of higher-ups in the department trying to get rid of her. Fearing that this will be the incident to finally give her enemies within the LAPD the ammo they need to ax her, or at the very least pull her from the Open-Unsolved unit, she instead opts to hide her situation and chase down the thieves herself. Things take a turn, though, when Ballard realizes that there’s something far bigger at play behind the scenes, and, needing backup she can trust, turns to Harry Bosch for help.
Incredibly, that storyline—which makes early waves and feels like the lead thread—is just the appetizer designed to whet readers’ appetites. The real splash comes when Ballard’s team gets a DNA hit on an old case involving the famed Pillowcase Rapist, who claimed his last victim in 2005 after terrorizing Los Angeles for more than half a decade. All the evidence suddenly points towards a well-known and respected Superior Court Judge being the killer, but bringing him down proves challenging for a number of reasons, including the fact that nobody wants to cross the surprisingly connected Judge for fear of what it might do to their careers. Everyone, that is, except for Ballard, who sets her sights on the truth and avenging the Pillowcase Rapist’s victims, no matter the blowback or career repercussions.
Meanwhile, Maddie Bosch—who, much like her character in the Bosch Legacy television show—has followed her famous father’s footsteps and joined the LAPD. A patrol officer, Maddie hopes to work her way up, and in an effort to speed things along, she’s taken to volunteering on Ballard’s unit. The younger Bosch believes she’s hit it big by solving a cold case that stretches back seventy-plus-years, but as she will soon learn, and Connelly’s readers have come to expect, things aren’t always what they seem . . . and as all three active cases begin to cross and weave together, there’s no shortage of surprises as Connelly dials the heat way up, leading to a shocking conclusion that proves without a doubt that he’s still got plenty of life left in his characters.
Is there anyone better than Michael Connelly still working today? If so, it’s a very short list. At the top of the many things that he does well, Connelly understands characters and knows how to give his readers what they want. It should be noted that this is most definitely not a Harry Bosch novel. It’s been a long while since we’ve seen Harry carry his own story (possibly as far back as 2917 in Two Kinds of Truth), and yet, Connelly continues to keep him involved in a number of ways. While Harry was a bigger support character in Resurrection Walk (2023), his role here, though reduced, is critical. That said, it does feel like Connelly’s taking one more step towards officially passing the torch to Ballard, a great hero in her own right, who happens to embody many of the same qualities as Bosch—they both exemplify the “Everyone matters, or no one matters” creed that Harry has lived by since first being introduced in The Black Echo (1992)—but with a slightly different flair.
While the three separate cases are the meat of the story, Connelly finds time to continue developing Ballard, delving into her personal and family life a bit more (and in ways we’ve not seen since The Late Show, 2017), as she really comes into her own as a franchise-leading protag. But there’s no question that Maddie Bosch is a scene-stealer, in part because of who her father is, and someone Connelly may be setting up to feature more prominently in future books. That’ll reduce the sting of seeing less from Harry, one of the greatest characters ever created, should he continue to take a backseat in 2025 and beyond. Most important, though, is the fact that Connelly is showing zero signs of slowing down anytime soon, even with his involvement in both of his hit TV shows (there’s even a nod to Netflix’s Lincoln Lawyer in the book here), and he still knows how to twist, turn, and bring the thrills unlike anyone else.
Prepare yourself for a late-night reading session because The Waiting is Michael Connelly at his very best, proving once again why he is the undisputed master of the modern crime novel.
Book Details
Author: Michael Connelly
Series: Ballard & Bosch #6
Pages: 416 (Hardcover)
ISBN: 031656379X
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Release Date: October 15th, 2024
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