Print:3/1/2003 (Grand Central Publishing; pp. 448; ISBN 978-0446611619); Audio: 9/1/2009 ISBN 9781607880783 (Hachette Audio; 11 hours, 6 min.); Feature Film: Not that I’m aware of.
Series: Harry Bosch 8
Main characters:
Hieronymus (Harry) Bosch=D-3 LAPD Hollywood Detective
Jerry (Jed) Edgar = LAPD Hollywood Detective
Julia Brasher = Rookie LAPD Officer
SUMMARY:
Apparently it’s fairly common to get a call from a citizen that their dog has come upon a bone in the hills, that appears to be human, but it’s not very common for the bone(s) to actually BE human. This one is. Worse yet, it’s a child’s. It’s going to take a lot of detecting to discover who was murdered, when, and by whom, but Detective Bosch rarely fails.
AUTHOR:
Michael Connelly. According to Michael’s website, “Michael Connelly was born in Philadelphia, PA on July 21, 1956. He moved to Florida with his family when he was 12 years old. Michael decided to become a writer after discovering the books of Raymond Chandler while attending the University of Florida. Once he decided on this direction he chose a major in journalism and a minor in creative writing — a curriculum in which one of his teachers was novelist Harry Crews.”.
NARRATOR:
Peter Jay Fernandez. According to IMDb, “Peter Jay Fernandez was born on August 15, 1953 in Brockton, Massachusetts, USA. He is an actor, known for The Adjustment Bureau (2011), Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017) and Deception (2008).” I enjoyed Peter’s narration.

GENRE: Murder Mystery, Police Drama
ACTION: No
LGBT FRIENDLY: Neutral
VIOLENCE: Yes, but primarily we hear about it after the fact.
POLITICS: Neutral
LOCATIONS: Los Angeles
SUBJECTS: Murder, child abuse, foster children, film industry, police procedures and terminology, forensics.

FUN REFERENCES:
Investigations takes Bosch to a film set where an actor is reading for a film called “The Closers” about the detectives who close cases. This was before the 2005-2012 series featuring Kyra Sedgwick as “The Closer” came out.
DEMOGRAPHICS
The main characters are middle-aged adults from a variety of ethnicities. The victim is a 12 year old boy.
EVALUATION:
I generally do not read reviews of things before I read listen to, or watch them, but I accidentally read one of this first. The man said this was his least favorite of Connelly’s works. I don’t see it. I found this as captivating as the rest.
SAMPLE QUOTATION:
"Bosche's cell phone chirped and he welcomed the intrusion into his thoughts on small deaths. It was Mankiewicz, the watch sergeant at the Hollywood Division of the Los Angeles Police Department.
'You finished with that yet?'
'I'm about clear.'
'Anything?'
'A changed-my-mind-suicide. You got something else?'
'Yeah. And I didn't think I should go out on the radio with it. Must be a slow day for the media--getting more what's-happening calls from reporters than I am getting service calls from citizens. They all want to do something on the first one, the actress on Mullholland. You know, a death-of-a-Hollywood-dream story. And they'd probably jump all over this latest call, too.'
'Yeah, what is it?'
'A citizen up in Laurel Canyon. On Wonderland. He just called and said his dog came back from a run in the woods with a bone in its mouth. The guys says it's human--an arm bone from a kid.'"
RATING:
As usual with Connelly’s novels, I gave this book 4 stars because I felt it was well written and kept my interest. ( )

"A citizen up in Laurel Canyon. On Wonderland. He just called up and said his dog came back from a run in the woods with a bone in its mouth. The guy said it's human - an arm bone from a kid." Bosch almost groaned. There were four or five call outside like this a year. Hysteria always followed by simple explanation: animal bones.

Very good mystery/detective tale about finding bones of 12 year old boy 20 years after being murdered.

Sicuramente un'altra avvincente indagine di Harry Bosch e soci, con tutti i tratti caratteristici dei precedenti romanzi.
Condivido il parere di altri lettori sul finale un po' forzato ma per quanto riguarda altri interrogativi irrisolti (...che qui non spoilero) bisogna affidarsi ai libri successivi per avere una risposta.
Tutti i romanzi di Connelly hanno un trait d'union che li lega: consiglio di leggerli in rigoroso ordine cronologico! ( )

I adore the Bosch books, but this is my least favorite. Well written, as always, but the plot was not my favorite. I especially didn't like Officer Brasher's storyline at all. Not one little bit. From beginning to end, that storyline was wrong.

I didn't like the ending, either. So sad, because there was a lot of potential to this book. ( )