Michael Connelly introduces us to Renee Ballard a detective that’s had some hard luck and stuck in the worst shift. Her dedication is very similar to Connelly’s other detective Harry Bosch bent on bringing those of guilt to justice. Like most Connelly books the story will keep you guessing and this book had a pretty stunning ending you won’t see coming.

Great book! I loved the characters especially Lola and Renee. Smart, strong, relentless! More books with female detectives please!

Very intense

Michael Connelly is always a good read. His books keep me reading page after page.

For most authors, this would be at least a 4.5 stars (which I’d round up to a five). However, seeing as it’s Michael Connelly — it only gets a 5 star rating… On the Connelly Scale. To be fair, the fact that I unintentionally read this series of books out of order utterly RUINED the last two big twists in the story … But, I’m also giving this a 4 because it lost my attention at times, with even 1-2 days going by (more than once!) before picking it up again… Which is NOT my usual pattern for a Connelly book (regardless of which series of his I’m reading) — a pattern which ordinarily involves reading every single spare minute (thereby polishing off a book of his in a day, or maybe 2). Really, what I’d like to be able to do is give Apple a 2 star rating for failing to have TWO out of the 5 books (thus far) in the Renèe Ballard series properly indexed to show up under their listing of “Other Books in This Series” … Only after I went over to Amazon to check if books 2 & 4 were just not showing up here (sometimes there are old contract issues limiting e-books to a certain distribution platform). I was really glad that they at least showed up when I searched on specific title names. Don’t let me disuade you … if you like (love!) his Bosch books (or the TV series, Legacy spinoff & more spinoffs to come), then you will love te Ballard series & even book #2!

Loved this book. Renee Ballard a female version of Harry Bosch I love it!

Ballard is an admirable character.

Read it in one scoop

The story pulls you along, with a tenacious detective whose job is not simple and whose direction is not clear. I keep waiting for her to give up, but….

I have read all the Bosch books and thoroughly enjoy all these books. I saw this book with Detective Ballard and took a chance. As always, the writing, plot, and characters were perfect. I hope that there will be more books forthcoming with Detective Ballard.