Intrigues to match Chandler

Michael Connelly's latest novel about his LAPD detective, Hieronymus - usually known as Harry - Bosch, begins when a golden Labrador named Calamity finds a bone in an overgrown empty lot off Laurel Canyon. Her owner, a retired doctor, identifies it as a child's upper-arm bone; when the rest of the skeleton is discovered, the forensic anthropologist determines that the remains are those of a 12-or 13-year-old boy, who's been severely and repeatedly abused during his life. Though the body was buried some 25 years earlier, Bosch puts as much effort into solving the case as if it had happened the day before.

The patrolman who caught the initial call had a rookie policewoman, Julia Brasher, as his partner; Bosch finds her attractive, and they're soon enjoying an office romance. But he should have paid more attention to what she told him about her earlier life, and wondered less briefly why she has chosen to enter the force at the age of 34. She has, it becomes clear, a bizarre agenda of her own, which brings the affair to a shocking and violent end. During the investigation, a cop leaks details to the media, the county medical officer, Teresa Corazon, showboats shamelessly to the TV cameras, and Bosch who, like Philip Marlowe, tests high on insubordination, catches a few more reprimands from his superiors. And, in the final pages, he comes to a decision which is as surprising for him as it is for us.

Michael Connelly's last Bosch book, A Darkness More Than Night, was, by his standards, slightly disappointing; with City of Bones, however, he's triumphantly back to mid-season form. It is a stunningly good novel: powerful, intriguing and impossible to lay down - perhaps, indeed, the best of the series. In his books, Connelly likes to use the odd, throwaway reference to pay his respects to Raymond Chandler: The Big Sleep is also partly set in Laurel Canyon; the policewoman here is named after the Brasher doubloon, the rare coin that is at the centre of The High Window. City of Bones can stand on the same shelf as both.