The Closers (Connelly novel)
 Softcover edition | |
| Author | Michael Connelly |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Harry Bosch #11 |
| Genre | Crime novel |
| Publisher | Little, Brown |
Publication date | May 16, 2005 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover, paperback) |
| Pages | 416 pp |
| ISBN | 0-316-73494-2 |
| OCLC | 57414458 |
| 813/.54 22 | |
| LC Class | PS3553.O51165 C58 2005b |
| Preceded by | The Narrows |
| Followed by | The Lincoln Lawyer |
The Closers is the 15th novel by American crime author Michael Connelly, and the eleventh featuring the Los Angeles detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch. This novel features a return to an omniscient third-person style narration after the previous two, set during Bosch's retirement (Lost Light and The Narrows) were narrated in from a first-person perspective.
Plot summary
LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department) detective Harry Bosch is back on the force after a three-year retirement. Assigned to the Open-Unsolved Unit (cold case squad) and teamed with former partner Kizmin "Kiz" Rider, Harry's first case back involves the murder of 16-year-old high school girl Rebecca Verloren in 1988, reopened because of a DNA match to blood found on the murder weapon. The blood on the gun belongs to a local low-life white supremacist, Roland Mackey, a fact that links him to the crime via the victim's biracial family. But the blood indicates only that Mackey had possession of the gun, so how to pin him to the crime? Connelly meticulously leads the reader along with Bosch and Rider as they explore the links to Mackey and along the way connect the initial investigation of the crime to a police conspiracy orchestrated by Bosch's nemesis Irvin Irving to cover up the ties of a ranking officer's son with a neo-Nazi group. Most striking of all, in developments that give this novel astonishing moral force, the pair explore the "ripples" of the long-ago crime, how it has destroyed the young girl's family—leaving the mother trapped in the past and plunging the father into a nightmare of homelessness and alcoholism—and how it drives Rider, and especially Bosch, into a deeper understanding of their own purposes in life.
Major Characters
Harry Bosch: Harry Bosch is the lead detective in the story. Bosch returns to LAPD after a three-year retirement. He works in the open-unsolved (cold cases) division of the force. Bosch is an intelligent detective who leaves no stone unturned. He is the only member of his police academy class still working for the LAPD.
Kizmin Rider: Kizmin "Kiz" Rider is an African American detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. She initially worked robbery and fraud in the Pacific Division before moving to the homicide table in the Hollywood Division where she was assigned to Squad One along with Harry Bosch and Jerry Edgar. She had persuaded the chief to take Harry back to service.