As the book cover tells us, this is a Harry Bosch novel. It's worth reminding ourselves of this because the second banana in this crime thriller is Connelly's other running character, the infamous "Lincoln Lawyer," Mickey Haller, defense attorney extraordinaire. Haller, you'll remember from the book or from the movie, earns the epithet by operating out of his tricked out Lincoln Continental. Yes, a law firm on wheels -- with driver! These are two guys whose Entertainment Quotient read out in the high 99's, second only to Connelly himself.

What a trickster. And, what a clever one. First, he makes them half-brothers. Then he brings them together in a brassy literary maneuver ("The Brass Verdict," 2008); next, in "The Reversal" (2010) gets them working together as Haller switches sides and plays prosecutor in a retrial against a client he defended. He hires Bosch to investigate.

Each of these crime stoppers grows to appreciate the talent of the other (as Connelly readers certainly do), which forms the basis, long time percolating, of having Mickey H. on the defense of a wrongly accused man in a headline case. Mickey then employs his best lawyering skills to convince the unhappily retired ex-cop to cross over to a place he's never been: lead investigator for the defense!.

No small thing to a guy whose whole career and purpose in life has been to put the guilty behind bars. But, so long as the fruits of his work go to the prosecution if it turns out Da'Quan Foster, a man with a rap sheet, is actually the brutally crazed killer of city official Lexi Parks he's good with the arrangement -- though not without deep conscience issues and nagging shame. In any case, we're convinced that Haller's right: Bosch is the best there is, badge or no badge.

One of the things Bosch certainly knows is that there are frameups, which is the working hypothesis to find evidence of it, and it helps when Bosch's first interview with the client puts him mentally on Haller's side. Now he's got to go to work.

As Bosch plods through the thicket of murder books and interview subjects, more brutal homicides are taking place around the city of L.A. but none that come to Harry's attention or appear to be connected to Foster... until a small clue causes Harry to look in a new direction. But, it's a little late. Harry has just come to the attention of those who are committing the bloody mayhem.

The elusive case is about to come to a boil, but who is going to burn whom first?

And just wait to see the Lincoln Lawyer's bag of tricks when he goes to court without having everything he needs to win the case. Connelly shows just how valuable his half brothers are to each other -- no half-heros in Connelly-land as he stays safely on the side of clarity and plausibility in his masterly way on one deeply complex and emotional case. Few are equal to Connelly who turns deep research into superb storytelling -- a natural gift given to only a few.