Dark Sacred Night – Michael Connelly

A MURDER HE CAN’T FORGET.
A CASE ONLY SHE CAN SOLVE.

Daisy Clayton’s killer was never caught. In over ten years, there has been no breakthrough in her murder case.

Detective Renée Ballard has faced everything the LAPD’s notorious dusk-till-dawn graveyard shift has thrown at her. But, until tonight, she’d never met Harry Bosch – an ex-homicide detective consumed by this case.

Soon, she too will become obsessed by the murder of Daisy Clayton.

Because Ballard and Bosch both know: every murder tells a story. And Daisy’s case file reads like the first chapter in an untold tragedy that is still being written – one that could end with Ballard herself, if she cannot bring the truth to light…

 

I received a review copy from the publishers to take part in the paperback blog tour. My thanks also to Tracy Fenton for the invitation to host this leg of the blog tour.

 

Fans of Michael Connelly will likely have already encountered Renée Ballard – she was the star of The Late Show – and events in that story are alluded to in Dark Sacred Night. Possible spoilers to be found but Dark Sacred Night can be read (and enjoyed) without first reading The Late Show.

Ballard works the night shift for LAPD, “dusk to dawn.”  One evening she returns to her desk to find a stranger rifling through the filing cabinets of one of her colleagues.  Naturally Ballard challenges the stranger and discovers she has finally met Harry Bosch…a name well known in the LAPD and a name very much known and loved by the crime fiction fraternity.

Ballard and Bosch will team up to try and uncover the truth behind the murder of a young woman, Daisy Clayton.  Daisy’s murder has been unsolved for too long and it troubles Bosch.  Not least because he currently has Daisy’s mother, Elizabeth, sleeping in his spare room.  Elizabeth is with Bosch as he has taken her in to try to allow her time to get her life sorted out.  She is a habitual drug user and the loss of her daughter and her addiction had left her in a bad way. Bosch is trying to help but Elizabeth’s presence is causing friction in Bosch’s relationship with his daughter.

The story in Dark Sacred Night flips between Ballard and Bosch.  Each have their own lives and each are involved in a case (or cases for Ballard) which does not concern the other.  Readers get to follow Ballard on her nightly shifts and the random crimes she is required to investigate and then we spend time with Bosch who is determined to bring down a gang leader.  As they are working together we also get some overlap when Ballard and Bosch meet up to discuss Daisy’s murder and the progress (or lack of) in chasing down leads and identifying possible suspects.

The variety of cases Ballard comes into contact with were particularly fun to follow, it broke up the focus on murders and gangs and gave the author the chance to show off Ballard’s skills and reasoning.  She is surely a character with much more potential and I do hope she gets further chance to shine in future.

Bosch does not have it so easy.  The gang leader he is chasing becomes aware he is the focus of attention and he takes steps to warn Bosch off.  The lengths the gangs are prepared to go to to ensure the police do not get too close are shocking and this, in turn, led to some terrifically dark twists in the story.  Bosch will find himself in more danger than he may have considered.  As he is clearly not as young as he once was, the reader does start to wonder if Mr Connelly is planning for a future without his leading man.

Dark Sacred Night is a very pleasing murder story. The interaction between Ballard and Bosch worked very effectively and they make a great team in this story.  Splitting the narrative broke up the story nicely – at 480 pages it is one of the longer crime books I have read of late. Yet the dual voices kept the story flowing and allowed the action to be shared between the characters so we don’t feel Ballard pings from one fraught danger to the next without taking time to catch her breath.

With so many wonderful tales already committed to print, readers can know that picking up a Michael Connelly book will be a rewarding reading experience.  Let yourself get lost in another cracking book from this master story teller – you can’t go wrong with Connelly.

 

Dark Sacred Night is newly released in paperback by Orion and is also available in digital and audiobook format.  You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Sacred-Night-Ballard-Thriller-ebook/dp/B079753GG4/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1UJABTHNLUONB&keywords=michael+connelly&qid=1558290153&s=digital-text&sprefix=michae%2Cdigital-text%2C149&sr=1-1