LOst light by michael connelly

Reviewed by Donna Buchan

Having left the LAPD, our favourite now ex-cop, Harry Bosch, has one more case left on his mind. The unsolved murder of a young film assistant has crept its way under Harry’s skin. The image of her violated body crumpled on the ground, hands folded as if in prayer, will not shake loose from his mind and so the file of her murder goes with him when he leaves his life as a cop behind.

Connected with Angela Benton’s murder is the robbery of two million dollars from the film set where she worked. A hot young producer had somehow talked a bank into lending the cash, for the sake of "realism and authenticity in the close up shots." Rather unsurprisingly, four masked men stage a heist on the set and get away with the money.

In the months following, Martha Guessler, an FBI agent who was working on the case, disappears on her way home. Shortly after that, two beat cops get caught in the crossfire of a coffee shop robbery, leaving one dead and one paralysed from the neck down.

The strands of this mystery are gradually unravelled by Harry as he seeks to investigate without a badge. Without really regretting his decision to retire, Harry dearly misses many of the aspects of being a cop, most of all the clout it brings to bear when attempting to get at the truth.

As ever, Connelly provides a memorable cast of characters. The pathetic bedridden paralysed cop proves to be a major source of information and talks to Harry on the proviso that Harry fills his drinking bottle with whisky, strictly forbidden by the cop’s sad stern wife. Whilst feeling deeply sorry for this broken man, Harry still does what he must in order to get what he needs.

In following the strand of the missing FBI agent, Harry encounters the best and worst the bureau has to offer – an agent who loved the missing Martha and will bend the rules as far as he dares in order to help Harry solve the riddle of her disappearance; and two utterly venal characters, agents on the scent of a terrorist connection to the stolen $2m, who redefine the meaning of ruthless.

Master of characterisation, Connelly also gives us a wonderful cigar munching, exercise bike riding Hollywood producer who can’t get his head round the idea that the questions Harry is asking are not the lead-up to a pitch for a movie.

Harry is somewhat in denial about his feelings regarding his future without a badge. His fervour to solve this last case is as much about him keeping a toehold in the world of detection as it is about the case itself. What is he if he is not a hound on a trail?

We feel for Harry in this – we’ve followed him from book to book, murder to murder, and as he unravels the last few strands of the case to reveal the final awful truth, Connelly gives Harry the chance to lay ghosts to rest in a satisfying denouement. The final twist in the tale is a surprisingly tender moment from a writer who excels in portraying the darker side of human nature. There is a definite sense that Connelly is saying goodbye to Bosch and giving him a possible future that not even the instinctive and wary ex-cop could have seen coming.

Copyright© 2003 Donna Buchan

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DONNA BUCHAN was born in Glasgow, studied in Stirling and taught in London before moving to Edinburgh where she met her husband (the erratic genius that is Allan Guthrie) over the bookshelves of the shop where they both worked. Now working as a legal editor, she teaches literacy to adults and guitar to children in her free time. Her support of her husband’s work derives entirely from the belief that helping him to get published will enable him to buy her diamonds.