Harry Bosch is the defendant in a civil trial, accused of having wrongfully slain Norman Church, a serial killer known as the Doll Maker. It has been four years and his shooting of Church saw him transferred from the prestigious Robbery-Homicide Division (RHD) to Hollywood Division. Church's wife is seeking damages and her lawyer, Honey "Money" Chandler, is making an excellent case. Worse, the recent LA Riots (1992) have damaged the LAPD reputation and made a negative verdict more likely. The trial has hardly begun when a body turns up, a blonde woman buried in concrete, who matches the modus operandi of the Doll Maker. She's only been dead two years. Did Bosch kill the wrong man?
Harry has a lot on his plate. He needs to be in court most of the day, he needs to find out who killed the concrete blonde, and his love life is entering a bumpy patch. Deputy Chief Irvin, who has been adversarial in previous books, transitions more to ally. In fact, Harry discovers that Irvin was the officer who found his mother's body in a Hollywood alley.
Three books into the series, there is a pattern of bad cops and law enforcement. The first book had a pair of bad FBI agents, the second had a cop in the drug trade, and now there is another. Yes, there are mostly good cops - or at least non-bad cops - but I suddenly see why the TV series is rife with bad cops. Of course, cops make the best opponents since they know the playbook. Interestingly, the trial from the book appeared in Season 1 of the Amazon series but it was a separate story from the main plot. In the book, it is integrated with the story. Better focus in the book.
Excellent book. Like the earlier books, the pace increased. It gets harder to put the book down the further along you are. Highly recommended.
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