Reneé Ballard – The Appointed Successor of Harry Bosch
Good old Harry Bosch, our favorite detective (see The Concrete Blonde), and arguably the lead of the best crime series I’ve ever read, has retired. He’s gotten old, poor guy. Reneé Ballard, the protagonist of The Late Show, seems to be Connelly’s chosen successor for the Hollywood Division.
A quick Google search reveals that in the next Ballard story, the two crimefighters will team up. I don’t know, maybe Bosch, who has always had a soft spot for women, takes Ballard under his wing, or something like that—after all, he’s well into grandpa age now. But let’s leave that as a surprise. (Ah, I’m sure he’ll charm her.)
But fortunately, we won’t be left feeling Bosch’s absence for too long, because Ballard’s approach, dedication, and outsider status remind us a lot of Bosch. Plus, Ballard is pretty sexy too. (Sure, Bosch is sexy too, but just a bit less so.)
We overlook Ballard’s flaws just as we did Bosch’s, or rather, we overlook the author’s obsession with the same basic setup that he couldn’t quite let go of in The Late Show either: the lone wolf who follows their own path, constantly clashing with at least five superiors, with both sides making life difficult for each other at every opportunity.
Renée Ballard – A Dedicated Female Detective
Although Ballard is a bit gentler and less confrontational as a woman, she’s just as willing to risk her career by intervening in a case that an entire detective squad is already working on. It’s like, say, if you were a hairdresser and kept trying to snip your scissors into the hair of the client that another hairdresser next to you was working on. After a while, you’d surely get a blast of hairspray in your face.
On the other hand, Ballard is just as committed to the victims as her predecessor, and she throws herself wholeheartedly into cases that others have carelessly swept aside. So, in the end, it more or less balances out.
Three Mysterious Crimes in The Late Show
Ballard, who was assigned to the Hollywood Division’s night shift as a form of punishment and suffers from a severe lack of investigative work, becomes involved in three different cases. Each of the three stands on its own, but all prove to be more than they initially appear. Among the three parallel, interwoven cases that snake around the detective, one is merely interesting, but the other two quickly become quite thrilling or mysterious. And Ballard also has to fend off schemes and manipulations directed against her personally.
The kidnapping case – as well as the sexual harassment Ballard faces from her superior – clearly reflect the spirit of the new, more politically correct times. Connelly supports the former, in which the victim is a transvestite, with a bit of an educational touch, highlighting Ballard’s completely accepting attitude.
Add to all this an author who knows police work down to the last paperclip on an investigative form, and it’s clear that The Late Show, the debut of Connelly’s new series, is a worthy match for the best of the Bosch novels.
Rating: 8.4/10
The Late Show (Renée Ballard #1) by Michael Connelly
405 pages, Hardcover
Published in 2017 by Little, Brown and Company
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