– Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
Book Blurb:
From New York Times best-selling author Michael Connelly, a new thriller introducing a driven young detective trying to prove herself in the LAPD.
Renée Ballard works the night shift in Hollywood, beginning many investigations but finishing none, as each morning she turns her cases over to day shift detectives. A once up-and-coming detective, she’s been given this beat as punishment after filing a sexual harassment complaint against a supervisor.
But one night she catches two cases she doesn’t want to part with: the brutal beating of a prostitute left for dead in a parking lot and the killing of a young woman in a nightclub shooting. Ballard is determined not to give up at dawn. Against orders and her own partner’s wishes, she works both cases by day while maintaining her shift by night. As the cases entwine, they pull her closer to her own demons and the reason she won’t give up her job, no matter what the department throws at her.
My Review:
Yes, I suppose I’d been living under a rock when I reviewed my first ever Michael Connelly book, The Law of Innocence (a Mickey Haller Book #7 of the Harry Bosch Universe) late last year. Sorry, not having any experience with the Harry Bosch series, I was plunking down into the middle of the Haller series. This time I thought I’d start with the first of his Detective Renée Ballard Mystery series.
Detective Ballard has been through the whole sexual harassment thing with a supervisor and the loss of her six protection from the partner who witnessed the incident and didn’t back her. She’s landed on the night shift—The Late Show—in LA.
Ten years on the job and working with men, she can be abrupt, speaking her mind and standing her ground. She exudes attitude.
Ballard and her night shift partner (who tends a sick wife at home) confronts two situations: one, a transsexual woman beaten and left for dead. In the second, she assists with a nightclub shooting where five people have been shot to death. In each, she is to merely take notes and names and hand it to the day shift detectives. But with either of these two, she can’t.
Ballard keeps up a physical schedule that includes surfing—paddleboarding—and it is learned that her dad drowned under those circumstances and that she has a couple friends with benefits and her dog, Lola. But her work is her life and she’s like a dog with a bone—she’ll investigate on her own time.
I like this character. She’s strong, independent, watches her own back now, and knows where she’s going. I definitely preferred this one over the one noted above, finding more I could emphasize with, enjoying the description of the LA valley, the diversity, and the description of the Pacific and those southern California waves. I’ll be looking for the second in this series as I understand there are only four. No prob.
Book Details:
Genre: Suspense, Suspense Thrillers, Police Procedurals
Publisher: Hachette Audio
ASIN: B06Y5SW7T1
Print Length: 318 pages
Listening Length: 9 hrs 23 mins
Narrator: Katherine Moennig
Publication Date: July 18, 2017
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: The Late Show
Rosepoint Publishing: Four of Five Stars 
The Author: Michael Connelly is the bestselling author of over thirty novels and one work of nonfiction. With over eighty million copies of his books sold worldwide and translated into forty foreign languages, he is one of the most successful writers working today. A former newspaper reporter who worked the crime beat at the Los Angeles Times and the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, Connelly has won numerous awards for his journalism and his fiction. His very first novel, The Black Echo, won the prestigious Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 1992. In 2002, Clint Eastwood directed and starred in the movie adaptation of Connelly’s 1998 novel, Blood Work. In March 2011, the movie adaptation of his #1 bestselling novel, The Lincoln Lawyer, hit theaters worldwide starring Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller. His most recent New York Times bestsellers include The Law Of Innocence, Fair Warning, The Night Fire, Dark Sacred Night, Two Kinds Of Truth, and The Late Show. Michael is the executive producer of BOSCH, an Amazon Studios original drama series based on his bestselling character Harry Bosch, starring Titus Welliver and streaming on Amazon Prime. He is also the executive producer of the documentary films, SOUND OF REDEMPTION: The Frank Morgan Story and Tales Of the American. He spends his time in California and Florida.
The Narrator: Born on December 29, 1977 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US as Katherine Sian Moennig, she is an American actress and producer, best known for the role of Shane McCutcheon in The L Word (2004). Her father was William H. Moennig III and her mother was Mary Zahn, a Broadway dancer. She is of Irish and German ancestry. At 18 she moved to New York City, where she studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She’s been married to a Brazilian film director and musician Ana Rezende since 2017.
©2021 V Williams 
I found parts of the tale a bit redundant and therefore tedious. Along the way the various plots are intertwined and become a bit aggravating because some of the threads are left hanging. The novel, however, is entertaining. 4 stars – CE Williams
Rosepoint Publishing: Five Stars 
The Author:
Lying in Wait, published in 2016, went straight to number 1 and was chosen for the Richard & Judy Book Club. It won the Radio 1 Ryan Tubridy Listeners Choice Award at the Irish Book Awards.
