Book Review: Cop cold case unit pursues a rapist, foils a terrorist plot and tackles a 1947 murder

It’s early morning in Southern California, and Renee Ballard, director of the LAPD Open-Unsolved Unit, is where she most loves to be. She’s surfing, and she’s darned good at it. After a final run, she returns to the parking lot and discovers that someone has broken into her car and stolen her badge and gun.
Protocol requires her to report this, but Ballard has more than her share of enemies in the department. She can’t afford to give them ammunition to take her down, so she breaks the rules and sets out alone to find the thief and get her stuff back.
It’s an especially bad time for Ballard to be distracted by her own problem, because her unit is in the middle of two huge cases in “The Waiting,” the sixth thriller in Michael Connelly’s fine Ballard and Bosch series.
For starters, a DNA check on a 24-year-old arrested on an unrelated charge has identified him as the son of the Pillowcase Rapist who terrorized Los Angeles for years before going silent in 2005. It turns out that the young man was raised by a politically connected Superior Court judge who may or may not be the biological father.
Meanwhile, rookie patrol officer Maddie Bosch, daughter of Harry Bosch, who once ran the Open-Unsolved unit, has joined Ballard’s team. She arrives with stunning evidence that may hold the key to solving the city’s most infamous unsolved murder — the brutal 1947 slaying of Elizabeth Short, a.k.a The Black Dahlia.
As if that weren’t enough, Ballard’s hunt for her badge and gun uncovers a plot to use them in an imminent terrorist attack. To foil that, she enlists the help of her old friend and convalescing cancer patient Harry, the protagonist of 20 previous Connelly novels.
Despite having to navigate the byzantine politics of the city’s justice system, including meddling higher ups and an intransigent prosecutor, Ballard and her team ultimately win the day. The multiple plot lines are suspenseful and unfold at a torrid pace, and as usual in a Connelly novel, the prose is tight and the characters are compelling and well-drawn. “The Waiting” is the habitually best-selling author at the top of his game.
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Bruce DeSilva, winner of the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award, is the author of the Mulligan crime novels including “The Dread Line.”
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