The Drop

Michael Connelly’s “The Drop”

Review by Gerti

In this novel, Michael Connelly again puts the spotlight on his LA homicide detective and favorite protagonist, Harry Bosch. Bosch retired from the police force, but then returned under a program that only gives him a limited time to catch cold-case killers. That program is called “DROP”, and at the beginning of the story, Bosch was given 3 years to continue with the LAPD. But the two cases he is called upon to solve in this book test him to the point where he wants to retire immediately.

His partner in this book is David Chu, and the two do not work as well together as some of Bosch’s previous partners, including Kiz Rider, who is now working for the Chief of Police’s office. As a result, she is able to keep Bosch informed when another former cop and current city councilman’s son dies. Despite the fact that Councilman Irving and Bosch hate each other, Irving has asked for him to find out whether his son killed himself or was murdered at the Chateau Marmont. He knows that Bosch will try his best to solve the case, no matter his feelings about the boy’s father. And Bosch does pursue it, even though it’s a case filled with political implications. Irving has been squeezing police funding as a member of the city council, and there is pressure on Bosch from all sides to solve the case quickly and in a way that pleases Irving, so that the money rolls back in.

Bosch’s heart, however, is in another case he’s working on - the cold case of a 19-year-old girl, killed in the late ‘80s. The new Regional Crime Lab has matched DNA from her to a convicted rapist who is seeking treatment in a local program. Seems like the perfect suspect, but he was only 8 years old when the crime happened, so Bosch needs to see if the lab (or other homicide cops) have made a mistake, and that could have legal implications on a ton of other cases. He’s supposed to be putting all his energy into the Irving case, but he sneaks in a pretty thorough investigation of this one, and realizes that the rapist’s blood was on the victim because HE had been assaulted by the girl’s true killer.

By the end, Bosch has solved both cases, and justice is served, despite a last ditch effort from another victim to kill the killer before he goes to trial. Bosch does not put the wrong person in jail, despite evidence that a former cop was the last person to see Irving’s son alive. And he finds a serial killer who’s been actively killing for decades. On top of that, he finds a new girlfriend - the only part of the story I feel uncomfortable with, as Bosch frequently leave his teenaged daughter alone while those two drink and chat. It’s bad enough for him to abandon his kid while investigating murders, but to date? It almost tarnishes his hero status.

I love Connelly as a writer, and I love reading about Harry Bosch, his best protagonist. But “The Drop” is not my favorite Bosch novel, as Harry let’s a lot of people down in this book, including Irving, the new girlfriend, and his daughter. Unlike other books in which Bosch dominates, here he’s all action and little heart.