A superb swansong

The Burning Room by Michael Connelly (Orion, £19.99)

Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch, in the final year of his career with the LAPD, is assigned a new partner in the Open-Unsolved Crimes department. The old dog is expected to teach Lucia Soto all the tricks as they investigate the murder of a mariachi musician who has finally died from a gun-shot wound sustained nine years ago. Lucia may be fluent in Spanish but Harry knows how to negotiate the minefield of politics and public relations that makes crime-fighting more difficult today. At least he thinks he does…

Even though “keyboards and cell phones” are “the tools of the modern investigator” the case soon hots up as the odd couple discover links to both a building magnate and a mayoral candidate. “Lucky Lucy”, of course, turns out to have her own dark secret: as a grown-up survivor of an arson attack on a kindergarten she is determined to track down the culprits. Each conversation becomes a confrontation, until the tension eventually explodes into violence.

As ever in Michael Connelly’s work, Los Angeles — a city in which “no matter how close something looked, it was still far away” — is a character in its own right. And the jazz soundtrack — “plaintive and sad but ... with an undeniable wave of underlying hope” — makes The Burning Room a superb swansong.