"’It's an angry world,’ Tommy said. ‘People do things you'd never expect.’"

This was recommended to me by a coworker and thought no better time to crack it open than when on a flight to sunny, sunny California: home of famous Connelly detective Bosch himself. I was also told I wouldn’t have to read any other Bosch novels to get into this one, which was absolutely correct: the beauty of crime thrillers, is however formulaic, they’re relatively easy to pop in and out of without prior reading required. Although, “Desert Star” did feel like a series culmination, or at least a hint at one, so maybe knowing key elements of the rest of the books would be appropriate. The story was multi-layered and held a great balance between emotion and factuality, the characters were genuine and complex, and the pacing was pitch perfect. You’re not getting lost in literary mechanics here: this is as straight-forward as it gets. 

The repetitive over-explanation of certain processes was helpful at first but became somewhat condescending at times. Often, “He would know she said that because this,” turned into less an informative aside and more redundant handholding filler. Bosch is not exactly what I would call a good guy, either, but I suppose that’s the draw for many readers: America loves an outside of the law, gunslinger, bad boy cowboy cop. However, the reality of that was a little too on the nose and more uncomfortable than I thought it would be. ACAB, including Bosch.

3.5/5 I can never end up committing to full series because of an innate fault of my own personality :D but, I’d probably pick up another one of these for a quick weekend read, or another travel book.