The lost one

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The Lost (English: The Wrong Side of Goodbye) is the 29th novel by the American crime novelist Michael Connelly , the 19th novel in the Harry Bosch series. It was published in 2016, with a German translation in 2018.

action

Even after his departure from the LAPD, Harry Bosch wants to continue to convict murderers as a detective. That's why he's doing a voluntary investigation with the San Fernando Police Department . The police chief of San Fernando, Anthony Valdez, knew Bosch from his days at the LAPD. In the current case, Bosch and his partner Bella Lourdes want to convict a serial rapist, the Screen Cutter .

At the same time, Harry Bosch is hired as a private detective. The industrial tycoon Whitney Vance faces the end of his life and wants to make amends. As a teenager he was with a Latina who was expecting a child from him. His father forced him to abandon the love of his life. Harry Bosch is supposed to find out if Vance has an heir to whom Vance would like to leave his wealth. Vance made his fortune with military helicopters that were used in the Vietnam War. Bosch has memories of his war mission in Vietnam.

The search quickly leads Harry Bosch to Dominick Santanello, the son of Whitney Vance and Vibiana Duarte, whom his mother had given up for adoption. Vibiana Duarte had not got over the giving of her child; she has therefore committed suicide. Bosch finds out that Dominick Santanello was serving as a medical sergeant in Vietnam and must have been on the medical ship USS Sanctuary at the same time as Bosch . Shortly thereafter, Dominick Santanello was killed in an attack by snipers of the Viet Cong on the helicopter in which he was deployed as a medic. Harry Bosch is so reminded of his own past that he desperately wants to find out more about Dominick Santanello's fate. He tracks down his sister and finds a hidden photo in the belongings of Santanello that the Navy had sent back showing Dominick's lover with a baby in her arms. Dominick Santanello had a daughter, a granddaughter of Whitney Vance.

Shortly afterwards, Harry Bosch learns that Whitney Vance has died. Immediately afterwards, Bosch found a handwritten will from Vance in his mail, sent to him by his secretary Ida Townes Forsythe. In the envelope is also the golden Vance fountain pen. Bosch is appointed as executor in the will. In addition, Ida Forsythe is awarded $ 10 million. Harry Bosch immediately turns on Mickey Haller, lawyer and his half-brother, because he knows that this will will be highly controversial. It is now all the more important for Bosch to find Vance's granddaughter.

He's going to San Diego . Harry Bosch finds the signature of Gabriela Lida, the mother of Vibiana Veracruz, on a mural in Chicano Park in San Diego, and he can track it down. Vibiana Veracruz, Vance's granddaughter, is an artist based in Los Angeles. Bosch is certain that he has found the heiress.

Back in Los Angeles, Bosch learns that his partner Bella Lourdes cannot be found. Bosch is seriously reproaching himself for having set her on a lead in the case of the screen cutter , but not accompanying her because he wanted to go to San Diego. By following Lourdes' steps, Bosch can guess the identity of the screen cutter . He is a former police officer who is now employed by the city of San Fernando and who, while doing his official duties, spied on the victims of his rape. The showdown takes place in Dockweiler's house - as it is called . Bosch shoots Dockweiler, who threatens three other police officers with a gun. Bosch is able to free the severely traumatized Bella Lourdes from a cave below the Dockweiler garage.

Two officers from the Pasadena Police Department wait for Bosch to return to his house. You want to speak to him because he had contact with Vance and it turned out that Vance was suffocated with a pillow. In the pictures of the crime scene that Bosch wants to see, he sees the gold fountain pen. How could that be? Together with Mickey Haller, Bosch visits Ida Forsythe and they bring her to a confession: she had forged the handwritten will. Forsythe is arrested by the Pasadena police.

The book ends with the dedication of Whitney P. Vance Park in the Arts District of Los Angeles. The park and surrounding blocks are maintained by the Fruit Box Foundation. The foundation's legal advisor is Mickey Haller and Vibiana Veracruz is the artistic director. At the ceremony, their newest statue will be unveiled, titled "The Wrong Side of Goodbye".

Cross references

Anthony Valdez has hired Harry Bosch as a volunteer investigator as police chief of San Fernando. When Valdez was still with the LAPD, Harvey Pounds, who was Bosch's supervisor at the time, tried to get Valdez fired. Bosch pushed pounds into a glass door, which is why Bosch was on leave in The Last Coyote . That is why Valdez and Bosch knew each other.

background

In a video, Michael Connelly talks about the title of the book. After 25 years of Harry Bosch as a policeman, it is new territory for Bosch and himself as a writer to portray his protagonist as a private detective, as a private eye . To this new feeling characterize Connelly came up with the title The Wrong Side of Goodbye , also alluding to the great tradition of private detectives Philip Marlowe and Lew Archer in the literature: The Long Good-Bye (dt. The Long Goodbye ) by Raymond Chandler and The Goodbye Look (dt. Money costs too much ) by Ross Macdonald .

reception

“Bosch turns police work into fascinating stories, just like a good reporter (Michael Connelly was one of the Los Angeles Times) flesh to the bones of the bare facts of a news item,” says Grace Lichtenstein of the New York Journal of Books, assessing the novel and finding it that Connelly gets better with age. In her review, Janet Maslin of the New York Times focuses on the many details in the story, which Connelly accurately describes, that bring the streets and neighborhoods of Los Angeles and San Fernando to life in the book. Kirkus Review gives the novel an A grade , a straight one, especially because of the "convincing odyssey of the good cop through the city of angels."

The krimi-couch.de judges: “Michael Connelly can do it easily. He manages to intelligently link the storylines and creates real page turner again and again. ”Michael Matzer from buchwurm.info compares the novel with Stieg Larsson's “ Verblendung ”and finds in it a“ plea for mothers, love. Minorities and tolerance ”. And also: The book is so exciting that the reviewer couldn't put it aside in the last quarter.

expenditure

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Connelly: About The Title: The Wrong Side of Goodbye on YouTube
  2. ^ Grace Lichtenstein: The Wrong Side of Goodbye (A Harry Bosch Novel) , in: New York Journal of Books, 2016
  3. ↑ Janet Maslin: Review: Michael Connelly's 'The Wrong Side of Goodbye,' a Mystery Traveling the Freeways in: New York Times, November 9, 2016
  4. ↑ Kirkus Review: The Wrong Side of Goodbye by Michael Connelly , November 1, 2016
  5. ↑ Annette Wolter: Don't mess with Harry Bosch in: Krimi couch.de, January 2019 2017
  6. ↑ Michael Matzer: Michael Connelly - Die Verlorene in: Buchwurm.info, August 27, 2018