Two of Michael Connelly's great detectives join forces for a grizzly new crime thriller!
Like all the Michael Connelly books I have read, Dark Sacred Night keeps you guessing until the last breath whilst being as easy to read as wearing an old, comfortable cardigan. His silky-smooth style leads you into the idiosyncrasies of each character and dances you through events which come back into to focus as the details develop before you.
In this tale, LAPD Detective Renée Ballard teams up with Harry Bosch, who she finds rifling through drawers in the office while writing up a report in the early hours of the morning. Ballard at first kicks the stranger out but on investigating, realises that he is working a cold case. This case is one that will bring the two together as they search for justice for the victim, Daisy, and the tracking down of the killer, when facts and truth are hidden from plain sight amongst decades of paperwork. This well-played introduction of two characters, who are perceived as good detectives, each with their own demons and known to Connelly readers, starts the reader on fast-moving police action dealing with more than one case that runs along side each other, crossing paths intermittently.
Connelly has an in-depth knowledge of police procedure and continually shows the link between thinking, procedure and intuition when good cops work together on a mutual goal. He writes as if talking to the reader, explaining the scene in detail and giving glimpses into the character and emotional stakes of each person as they work at their role in the event being described. Drug lords and dismembered corpses add an edge to the story as it unfolds, while these detectives deal with their own life traumas and workloads. Luckily both characters are strong-willed and determined, matching each other in a tenaciousness that sees them finding the small bits of information others have overlooked.
This is the usual high standard of writing that one comes to expect of Michael Connelly and, like his other works, is hard to put down. It is effortless to read and yet tantalising, comfortable yet grizzly, perturbing yet poignant, and a crime thriller that will be one you will want to reread when you have a spare afternoon.
Reviewed by Leanne Caune
Distributed by: Allen & Unwin
Released: October 2018
RRP: $32.99
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