No readers of Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch novels doubts Bosch’s superiority as an LAPD homicide investigator. Where we’ve questioned Bosch over the years has been in the rest of his life roles. As a father, husband, friend and boyfriend, he has frequently revealed himself as a bust in the previous 14 Bosch books. But that perception changes with the new book. In The Drop, Bosch emerges as a freshly mature fellow.

It’s his 15-year-old daughter who seems to have made the difference (though some might say of Bosch, who is approaching 60, what took him so long to grow up?). Maddie moved in with Bosch two years ago after her mother was killed in Nine Dragons (2009). Bosch has turned into an alert and nervous father, constantly on the phone to his daughter. For her part, the kid is a gem. She’s far more technologically adept than her father and helps him past tricky computer problems. Her influence works further on him in ways she might not suspect; it’s her mere presence that keeps Bosch from drinking at home and influences him to settle for a glass or two of wine everywhere else.

At LA’s new Police Administration Building, Bosch works with the unit handling cold cases, and as The Drop opens, he and his partner are assigned to a 1989 rape-murder case that comes to life with a curious new clue. Ordinarily, this case, with much promise of twists and turns to come, would be enough to fill a satisfying Bosch book. But, still in the opening pages of the new novel, Bosch gets orders from the chief of police to add a second, non-cold case to his list.

The case’s crime, as hot as the day’s headlines, involves a prominent LA businessman who either jumped or was shoved from the Chateau Marmont’s penthouse. Worse news for Bosch is that the deceased’s father is Bosch’s mortal enemy, former LAPD deputy chief Irvin Irving. The situation places Harry in the awkward middle of a piece of “high jingo,” his phrase for dirty police politics.

Moving through this intense double story, Michael Connelly is at the top of his game. So is Bosch. So, for that matter, is Maddie.