Connelly, Michael. The Closers.

NY: Little, Brown, 2005.

LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch, a little older and a little grayer, retired three years ago, but discovered he really couldn’t live without the badge and the gun (it was making him walk lopsided), so he’s back on the job, now in the Open-Unsolved unit dealing with cold cases, where the investigative work is almost purely intellectual.

Connelly, Michael. The Overlook.

NY: Little, Brown, 2007.

This is the 13th novel featuring Harry Bosch in little more than a decade, and while the LAPD homicide expert has evolved somewhat (he actually owns a digital camera now), he really hasn’t changed in the essentials, even if he is getting older and grayer. That’s both a good thing and a bad thing. Harry’s mission — to speak for the dead, because “everybody counts or nobody counts” — is timeless, but his inability to handle authority well limits his prospects in the department and also seems to guarantee a succession of partners (the last two of whom have been shot while on the job).

Connelly, Michael. Echo Park.

NY: Little, Brown, 2006.

Retirement didn’t sit too well with Harry Bosch, ex-LAPD homicide detective, and after two years of combining his pension with occasional private investigations, he’s thrown up his hands and come back to the force, working cold cases in the Open-Unsolved Unit. And he’s paired with one of his old partners from his previous life who is everything he’s not — young, black, female, gay, and computer-literate.

Connelly, Michael. The Narrows.

Boston: Little, Brown, 2004.

Connelly has developed this odd habit of killing off characters from his earlier books, even the major players. In this case, it’s Terry McCaleb, retired FBI profiler and heart transplant survivor, protagonist of Blood Work, who has died suddenly on his charter fishing boat, a victim of his new heart following the path of the old one. (Clint Eastwood went to the funeral.) Only Terry’s wife isn’t at all sure that’s what really happened, so she calls up retired LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch, a friend of Terry’s. (Like any successful detective, Bosch seems to know almost everyone in L.A. worth knowing.)

Connelly, Michael. Lost Light.

Boston: Little, Brown, 2003.

At the end of the last novel in this generally excellent series, homicide Detective Harry Bosch of the LAPD had finally had enough. After twenty-eight years in harness, he pulled the pin, retirement party and all. Now he spends his days visiting an old jazzman in the retirement home and drinking coffee on the balcony of his home overlooking Hollywood. But when he cleaned out his desk, he also took along a box of files on unsolved cases and one of those is the focus of this outing. Because Harry may have quit his job but he hasn’t abandoned his mission — speaking for the dead.

Connelly, Michael. City of Bones.

Boston: Little, Brown, 2002.

Deputy Chief Irving, who has been both nemesis and cautious supporter of Los Angeles homicide Detective Harry Bosch for a number of years, once described him as a “shit magnet” — one of those individuals to whom things simply happen, who seem always to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, their undoubted professional abilities notwithstanding. This time, it’s the discovery of a twelve-year-old boy’s humerus in a shallow grave up in Laurel Canyon that eventually causes several major changes in Harry’s life.

Connelly, Michael. Angels Flight.

Boston: Little, Brown, 1999.

Howard Elias is a highly successful civil rights lawyer whose specialty is suing the Los Angeles Police Department on behalf of those the cops have mistreated, which (naturally) has earned him the hatred of every blue uniform in the city, as well as the regard of LA’s black population. When Elias’s body is found with several 9mm slugs in it — the caliber of the favorite police sidearm — the city is poised is erupt again in riots. It’s only been a few years since Rodney King and no one trusts the cops to tell the truth any longer, or not to tamper with evidence. Detective Harry Bosch can be a lose cannon but he’s also probably the best homicide investigator the department has, so he draws the case — with instructions to get it wrapped up as fast as possible. But it’s not going to be an ordinary case; it never is when Harry’s team is involved. Not to mention that his year-old marriage shows signs of crumbling.

Wambaugh, Joseph. Hollywood Station.

NY: Little, Brown, 2006.

Somehow, I haven’t read any of Wambaugh’s books since The Onion Field, but I have been working my way through Michael Connelly’s “Harry Bosch” series set in Hollywood Division, so I thought I might get a different take on the place. And, boy, it really is different. First, Bosch is a detective while most of the action in this book involves the patrol units dealing with problems on the streets. Second, there’s a definite dark side to most of Harry’s cases, while Wambaugh’s narrative frequently has a wheels-off style reminiscent of Carl Hiaasen or Elmore Leonard.

Connelly, Michael. The Last Coyote.

Boston: Little, Brown, 1995.

Harry Bosch, the best homicide detective in the LAPD’s Hollywood Division, is also a loose cannon and often his own worst enemy (and all those other clichés). When his lieutenant — a weasely bureaucrat with zero detecting experience — fatally screws up one of Bosch’s cases through willful ignorance, Bosch shoves the man face-first through the glass wall of his office. Now Harry is on “involuntary stress leave,” assigned to sessions with a department shrink, and in danger of losing his job. Relieved of his badge and his gun, he decides to undertake the freelance investigation of a thirty-five-year-old homicide with a strong personal component: The murder of his mother, a Hollywood prostitute, which was never adequately pursued.

Connelly, Michael. Black Echo.

Boston: Little, Brown, 1992.

The first of Connelly’s novels I read were several of his later, non-series books. (Except that all of them are actually part of a collection of overlapping character-driven sub-series.) They were mostly okay but not especially memorable. But I noted the high esteem in which the man is held and I went back and found copies of a few of his earlier works. This one, in fact, is his first, an award-winning introduction to the cranky, quirky, frequently uncooperative but always true-to-himself LAPD homicide detective, Harry Bosch.