In The Wrong Side of Goodbye, former LAPD detective Harry Bosch is hired as a private eye to find out whether a reclusive billionaire has an heir related to him by blood. Now well into his 80s, the man had left behind a pregnant underage Mexican girl “on the wrong side of goodbye” when he was a college student. Harry’s search will lead him into the heart of Chicano culture in Southern California. The investigation will also expose him and his teenage daughter to great danger, as the board members of the billionaire’s company seek to protect their access to wealth and power.
Two mysteries, unfolding in tandem
Meanwhile, Harry has been taken on as a volunteer reserve officer by the San Fernando Police Department to investigate cold cases. He has succeeded in linking a series of bold and brutal rapes through his usual dogged research. While he pursues the search for an heir to the billionaire’s fortune, Harry and his young female partner find themselves ever closer to identifying the rapist. Unlike so many other mystery novels, in which all the strands of the plot are tied together neatly in the end, the two cases unfold in tandem.
The Wrong Side of Goodbye (Harry Bosch #19) by Michael Connelly ★★★★★
Harry Bosch may be aging, but he’s still in fine form
In so many instances, long-running series of mystery novels lose steam after a time. But Michael Connelly‘s work remains fresh and compelling even in the 19th novel of his Harry Bosch series. (He has also written ten other mysteries between 1992 and the present.) The Wrong Side of Goodbye is detective fiction at its best. It’s no mystery that Connelly is now producing for Amazon the third season of a television series based on the Harry Bosch novels.
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