Michael Connelly brings us the second in the LAPD detective Renee Ballard series and he brings in Harry Bosch, a man Renee knows nothing about. Renee has been shunted onto The Late Show, the Hollywood nightshift, after an injustice earlier, but oddly enough she has settled in there and somehow it suits her. Her partner is on bereavement leave and she is on her own when she is called to a home where a woman's body, heavily decomposing, is discovered. It is assumed to be murder but it does not take Renee long to ascertain that it was an accident, with a starved cat feeding on the corpse. On returning to write up her report, she finds Harry rifling through a file cabinet of a colleague, and throws him out. However, her curiosity is aroused, she cannot help herself as she tries to find out who Harry is and what he was doing there.

Harry has the traumatised Elizabeth Clayton, a recovering drug addict, temporarily living with him, someone he met on his last case. Nine years ago, Elizabeth's 15 year old daughter, Daisy, was brutally murdered, her body bleached and discarded like trash in an alley. This spurs Harry to look into the cold case, as he witnesses Elizabeth's unrelieved grief destroying her. Having Elizabeth staying with him is not ideal, as his daughter, Maddie, is refusing to visit him while Elizabeth is there. Once Renee learns of Harry's investigations into finding Daisy's killer, she wants in. It soon becomes transparent that there is much the pair have in common, a dogged determination to work cases that borders on obsession and a penchant to bend the rules. In the meantime, both have other demands on their time. Harry as a reserve at SFD is looking into a cold case murder of the 52 year old gang member of the Varrio San Fer 13, Cristobel Vega, gaining insight into what happened after locating a witness, only to find the case exploding out of his control. Renee finds herself with the horrifying task of searching for the dismembered body parts of a murder victim at a refuse dump. As Renee and Harry plough through the mountains of information looking for a lead on Daisy's killer, the truth proves to be elusive. Will they succeed in finding the killer?

I did not expect Renee and Harry to be working together so soon, but after an initial awkwardness the two, unsurprisingly, mesh well, something they will sorely need as each finds themselves in life threatening and dangerous scenarios. Harry's future with SFD is uncertain, but what is clear is that this is not going to stop him doing what he does best, and it looks like we will see him pairing up with Renee again in the future. Connelly once again displays his attention to detail in police procedures, showing us that his research is demonstrably impressive. I loved this addition to the Renee and Harry series, but there is a strong part of me that wished I could have seen far more of Renee prior to her working with Harry. As usual, Connelly gives us a superb crime thriller with his trademark aplomb. Highly recommended! Many thanks to Orion for an ARC.