I’ve read that there is another Harry Bosch novel* coming out in November of this year (2024), but for now, I have started to read, “The Wrong Side of Goodbye,” which I started reading several novels ago. When I realized the storyline, I just didn’t feel like reading that story, which I had seen on the Bosch TV Series. Now I have read all the other Bosch novels, and several others in which Harry Bosch may or may not appear, including “The Poet,” “Blood Work,” and “The Late Show.” “The Wrong Side of Goodbye” is my last Bosch novel. I’ve read all the others, but not in published order. *”The Waiting” a Ballard/Bosch novel.
If I had read the Bosch novels in the order in which they were published, I probably would have stopped by the 4th or 5th novel. I learned to hate Harry Bosch from the written character, not the character played by Titus Welliver during the several years of Amazon Original BOSCH. The dislike started in “The Black Ice,” when Harry is about to sleep with the Interim Medical Examiner, who has just that day performed an autopsy on an apparent suicide by another LAPD detective. But, she finds evidence that this wasn’t a suicide and Harry presses her for her findings. She tells Harry that she can’t share her findings with him because she is the only source for this alternate finding and she doesn’t want to jeopardize her possibility of becoming the Chief Medical Examiner. Harry assures her that he won’t share what she tells him. After they have sex, she asks if she can take a shower. And, she hasn’t even had a chance to wash the Bosch stink off of her before Harry has picked up his phone and called a newspaper journalist giving the journalist the heads up to determine whether the dead detective’s demise was due to a suicide or a murder. Bosch then zips off the Mexico.
When I read this vignette I said to myself, “If I was a co-worker with Harry Bosch, and he did this to me, I would form a lasting opinion about Harry Bosch.” And that opinion would be that “Harry Bosch is a lying sack of dog shit that can’t be trusted.” And, I would never give Harry Bosch a “free ride” or “cut in line” card again. This was even more obvious, because I read “City of Bones” immediately after reading “The Black Ice.” The novels weren’t written in that order (about an 8 years difference), but Harry’s mistreatment of the Interim Medical Examiner, that slight, was fresh in my mind when Harry calls the now Chief Medical Examiner asking her to take a look at a bone to see if it is human or not. And, she tells him to come over and she will do it. She doesn’t invite Harry into her home as she has an event she is planning to attend later that night, but she does verify that it is indeed a human bone and sends him on his way. She should have told him to “fuck off.”
So the slam bang conclusion of “The Burning Room” is that Harry has just been ordered to give up his badge and gun pending an investigation regarding his breaking into a locked room with his lock pick skills & a paper clip.
**I think it was the Burning Room where Harry once again interacts with the now “former Chief Medical Examiner,” who has been demoted due to politics. Connelly seems to relish that this character has fallen from her high point, but if I were the character, I would still tell Harry to “fuck off.”
Oh, and could Harry have ever had a successful relationship with a woman? Well, I don’t think he ever told his high school English teacher, “Oh, by the way, I killed your former husband when he attacked me. But, it’s okay because he had murdered his half-brother.”
Harry is an awful parent. Maddie Bosch is second or third fiddle to her dad’s detective work.
U.S. Bank Tower (Downtown)
San Fernando Police Headquarters
Los Angeles County Public Health Building
St. Helen’s Home for Unwed Mothers (St. Annes)
Maternity home’s 100-year evolution (latimes 2008 article)
Poquito Mas
Poquito Mas at 3701 Cahuenga Blvd. West, Studio City CA 91604
Portal of the Folded Wings Shrine to Aviation
Hotel del Coronado
CellRight
Giamela’s Submarine Sandwiches
I guess it was early this morning, July 20th, 2024, that I finished reading “The Wrong Side of Goodbye.” Until another Bosch novel is published, I have now read all the Harry Bosch novels. I did not read them in the order in which they were published. I have also read “The Poet,” Jack McAvoy, “Blood Work,” Terry McCaleb, and “The Late Show.” Renée Ballard.
Thanks to Connelly’s placing his fictional characters in real life locations, I now have a working familiarity with a lot of Los Angeles and surrounding areas. I know that Avalon is the only incorporated town on Catalina Island. I already knew the Wilmington area of the Port of Los Angeles because of my familiarity with the cargo vessel, YM Warranty, which had visited this area several times. I got to know the Cabrillo Marina area, and recognized the nearby Warehouse #1 in a Dodge car commercial.
I can take you along 1st Street pointing out Mariachi Plaza all the way to City Hall, LAPD HQ, the LA Times Building and the CCB. I know if you go one way on Broadway, you will pass the CCB, the Hall of Justice and come to the ornate Dragon Gate to Chinatown. Dodger Stadium and the LAPD Police Academy are located on further. And Echo Lake Park and Silver Lake are just, “over there.” Down Broadway in the opposite direction will take you past the Bradbury Building and Grand Central Market. On the other side of Grand Central Market across Hill Street is the Angel’s Flight funicular.
Bill Gibson, II 