Bosch is back! After a three-year retirement, Harry Bosch returns to the LAPD, assigned to the Open-Unsolved division (Connelly’s clever renaming of the Cold Case Unit). With The Closers being the eleventh entry into the Harry Bosch series, Connelly keeps the character fresh by having him grow and change. He even has the Bosch’s partner Rider refer to him as surprisingly new:

Rider shook her head in an almost wistful manner.
"A few hours ago this was given to us as a welcome-aboard present. It was supposed to be a slam dunk…"
“The DNA made everybody jump to a conclusion. It’s what’s wrong with the world. People think technology is an easy ride. They’re watching too much TV."
"Is that your weird way of saying you don’t think he did this?"
"I don’t know what I’m thinking yet."
"So we put a tail on him, tap his phone, spook him somehow and then see who he calls and how he acts?"
Bosch nodded.
"That’s what I’m thinking," he said.
"We’d need to clear with Able first."
"We follow the rules. Just like the chief told me today."
"Holy smoke – the new Harry Bosch."
"You’re looking at him.”

Harry Bosch is back from retirement, and his first case with the Open-Unsolved division is the 1988 murder of Rebecca Verloren, a bi-racial sixteen-year-old girl who was carried from her bedroom in her parents’ home and shot on Oat mountain. With the best in-with he’s ever had (literally, a friend and former detective got rehired for the cold cases and this was the spark of inspiration for Bosch’s new direction), Connelly blurs the lines of fiction and reality by essentially giving us an inside look at the new streamlined L.A.P.D. It’s a deftly crafted tale that has Connelly bringing the police procedural back to form with the use of pure, untainted police work. Connelly touches on just about everything from the new policing policies to the “Patriot Act” to various social issues.

With a starred review from Publishers Weekly (among many others), Connelly has not only deflected the scorn of critics but will ingratiate himself to a new bunch of mystery buffs and please the old ones.