Harry Bosch is back. He’s still persona-non-grata with the LAPD but still working as a volunteer on cold cases with San Fernando PD.

This latest outing from Michael Connelly started a little slowly for me as I struggled to get ‘into’ the two cases on offer, particularly one which centred around Bosch’s character and behaviour being besmirched. Yes, again!

But thankfully it wasn’t long before I was hooked and I raced through most of the book.

Two Kinds of Truth
by Michael Connelly
Series: Harry Bosch #22
Published by Allen & Unwin AU
on October 31st 2017
Source: Allen & Unwin
Genres: Crime Fiction, Police Procedural
ISBN: 9781760630775
Pages: 416

Goodreads

Harry Bosch is back as a volunteer working cold cases for the San Fernando Police Department and is called out to a local drug store where a young pharmacist has been murdered. Bosch and the town's 3-person detective squad sift through the clues, which lead into the dangerous, big business world of pill mills and prescription drug abuse.

Meanwhile, an old case from Bosch's LAPD days comes back to haunt him when a long-imprisoned killer claims Harry framed him, and seems to have new evidence to prove it. Bosch left the LAPD on bad terms, so his former colleagues aren't keen to protect his reputation. He must fend for himself in clearing his name and keeping a clever killer in prison.

The two unrelated cases wind around each other like strands of barbed wire. Along the way Bosch discovers that there are two kinds of truth: the kind that sets you free and the kind that leaves you buried in darkness.

Most of the books I’ve read in the Hieronymus (Harry) Bosch series I’ve read feature two cases. In fact, many of the crime fiction books I read involve a couple of cases which ultimately merge – sometimes in the unlikeliest of ways. The blurb ‘warns’ us it will be the case here and I kept waiting for some almost unbelievable link but it doesn’t really come. Not in the way we expect. And that’s a good thing. Whether it’s Lynda LaPlante or Harlan Coben I sometimes feel, adding a second case (or even a backstory that isn’t resolved) dilutes one of the plots and everything feels a little underdone.

It doesn’t happen here however as the two cases are quite disparate but ‘merge’ only slightly, at the worst possible moment.

I’ve said before that Connelly obviously has Bosch down pat by now. I was a bit agog to realise the cop is now in his mid 60s… and he’s still grappling with the fact his daughter Maddie is off at University (and busy with her friends) however and regrets the years they had minimal contact. As a result he remains a little more introspective than he once was.

Mickey Haller (the Lincoln Lawyer) also makes an appearance in this outing – as Bosch is in need of a lawyer – and I found myself probably more interested in their re-investigation into the potential serial killer on death row than the drug mule / pill mill case. In fact, the latter felt a tad anticlimactic when resolved (I kept waiting for an extra twist!).

However, this is classic Connelly (and Bosch) and, once it got going, had me hooked and wanting more. And – as is so often the case – the book ends at a point that keeps we readers hanging… waiting (im)patiently now for the twenty-third book in the series.

Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly was published in Australia by Allen & Unwin and is now available.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review purposes.