History Literature / DesertStar

* OldCopYoungCop: The "old cop, young cop" dynamic that has been going on between young go-getter Renee Ballard and grizzled vet Harry Bosch since the characters were first paired up gets a tweak in this novel. Harry volunteers for Renee's unit, which makes him her supervisor. She has to upbraid him from time to time for not respecting her authority.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: There's bits of foreshadowing of the ending. Harry says he shaved his mustache because "it was turning white" even though Renee knows it had been white for some time. Other characters make comments about how he isn't looking well. Colleen the supposed psychic observes a "dark aira" around Bosch, something he mentions at the end when telling Renee the truth about [[spoiler:his terminal cancer]].

The lure is the Gallagher Family case, which Bosch describes as his "white whale". The Gallaghers--husband, wife, and two children--were all murdered and buried in the desert back in 2013. The strong suspect was Finbar [=McShane=], Stephen Gallagher's business partner, who stole $800K from the business and disappeared after the Gallagher family disappeared. But Bosch was never able to prove it and in any case, [=McShane=] has been on the lam ever since.

Ballard tells Bosch that part of the price of working on the Gallagher Family case is investigating the Sarah Perlman case. Sarah Pearlman was a 16-year-old girl murdered in her home in 1994. Her brother, Jake Pearlman, is now a Los Angeles city councilman, and Jake is responsible for the Open-Unsolved unit being reopened in the first place. Renee tells Harry that he has to put the Pearlman case ahead of his own.

Eight years after being forcibly retired from the LAPD in ''Literature/TheBurningRoom'', and now well into his 70s, Harry Bosch is back--sort of. His unofficial, off-the-books partner Renee Ballard has been put in charge of a new Open-Unsolved unit, which is staffed by civilian volunteers supervised by her. Naturally, she recruits her old friend Bosch the supremely skilled investigator to the unit.

The lure is the Gallagher Family case, which Bosch describes as his "white whale". The Gallaghers, husband, wife, and two children, were all murdered and buried in the desert back in 2013. The strong suspect was Finbar [=McShane=], Stephen Gallagher's business partner who stole $800K from the business and disappeared after the Gallagher family disappeared. But Bosch was never able to prove it and in any case, [=McShane=] has been on the lam ever since.

Ballard tells Bosch that part of the price of working on the Gallagher Family case is investigating the Sarah Perlman case. Sarah Pearlman was a 16-year-old girl murdered in her home in 1994. Her brother, Jake Pearlman, is now a Los Angeles city councilman, and Jake Pearlman is responsible for the Open-Unsolved unit being reopened in the first place. Renee tells Harry that he has to put the Pearlman case ahead of his own.

* TheCameo: Renee calls Bosch's half-brother Literature/MickeyHaller, a defense lawyer and Michael Connelly's second most-used protagonist. An innocent man is in prison for a murder actually committed by Ted Rawls, and Renee alerts Haller to this after finding out that the LAPD is going to ignore her evidence to avoid embarrassment.

** Harry and Renee pull into a real estate office, and Harry remembers that it used to be a jewelry store and he was involved in a case where two brothers were murdered there, by "bent cops". That was ''Literature/{{The Crossing|2015}}''.

** Keisha Russell, an IntrepidReporter who covered the cop beat and appeared several times in early Bosch novels, reappears after not being mentioned for many years. She's back on the cop beat and asks a nasty question about Bosch at a press conference. In fact she calls him a "gunslinger", and when Harry asks where she got that, she says she read it in an old news story about when lawyer Honey Chandler sued Bosch, which was way back in Bosch #3 ''Literature/TheConcreteBlonde''.
** Part of a tragic reveal, when Harry mentions how he found some stolen cesium, which was ''Literature/TheOverlook''. His cancer has come back and he's terminal.
* DetectiveMole: Harry and Renee eventually figure out that this is why Ted Rawls got his friend Jake Pearlman to put him on the Open-Unsolved unit. Rawls killed Sarah Pearlman, and he wanted to keep tabs on the investigation.
* DrivenToSuicide: After trying to kill Bosch, Ted Rawls the SerialKiller shoots himself with his last bullet.
* EurekaMoment: Harry and Renee realize who did it when Hastings tells them he donated a kidney to his good friend, Ted Rawls.
* ExactWords: Bosch intimidates Sheila Walsh into letting him in by saying "I have a warrant." He does have a warrant--a years-old warrant from a completely different and unrelated case.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: There's bits of foreshadowing of the ending. Harry says he shaved his mustache because "It was turning white" even though Renee knows it had been white for some time. Other characters make comments about how he isn't looking well. Colleen the supposed psychic observes a "dark aira" around Bosch, something he mentions at the end when telling Renee the truth.
* INeverSaidItWasPoison: Subverted. Renee zeroes in on Nelson Hastings, Pearlman's chief of staff, because Hastings said something about the 2005 campaign not having any black volunteers, and Renee never told him that Laura Wilson was black. But when she confronts him, he smacks her down by answering that when he first heard about the Wilson case from her, he looked it up and saw Laura Wilson's picture in a news story.

* RealPersonCameo: Another mention of Rick Jackson, a real LAPD cop who's basically the model for fictional character Harry Bosch. Rick is also retired and working for San Mateo County doing the same thing Bosch is in this book.

* TheReveal: At the very end Bosch reveals to Renee the reason his odd actions in not just going after [=McShane=] alone and breaking into his home, but leaving goodbye notes for both her and his daughter. His cancer has come back, and he's dying.

* SerialKiller: Ted Rawls, a volunteer on the Open-Unsolved unit, turns out to be a serial killer with a box of {{Creepy Souvenir}}s.
* SurpriseCarCrash: Harry, who was tailing Ted Rawls, has lost track of him. Harry tells Renee where to go and is saying "I'll do the--" when Rawls plows into the back of his Cherokee.

* RememberTheNewGuy: One might that that the Gallagher Family case, Bosch's "white whale", would have mentioned a merit in ''Literature/TheBurningRoom'', especially since Bosch's forcible retirement at the end of that book meant that he wasn't going to close it.
* TheReveal: At the very end Bosch reveals to Renee his odd actions in not just going after [=McShane=] alone and breaking into his home, but leaving goodbye notes for both her and his daughter. His cancer has come back, and he's dying.

The lure is the Gallagher Family case, which Bosch describes as his "white whale". The Gallaghers, husband, wife, and two children, were all murdered and buried in the desert back in 2013. The strong suspect was Finbar [=McShane=}, Stephen Gallagher's business partner who stole $800K from the business and disappeared after the Gallagher family disappeared. But Bosch was never able to prove it and in any case, [=McShane=] has been on the lam ever since.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: There's bits of foreshadowing of the ending. Harry says he shaved his mustache because "It was turning white" even though Renee knows it had been white for some time. Other characters make comments about how he isn't looking well. Colleen the supposed psychic observes a "darkness" around Bosch, something he mentions at the end when telling Renee the truth.

** Keisha Russell, an IntrepidReporter who covered the cop beat and appeared several times in early Bosch novels, reappears after not being men

* ContinuityNod: Every Michael Connelly book after [[Literature/TheBlackEcho the first one]] has them.

** Harry and Renee pull into a real estate office, and Harry remembers that it used to be a jewelry store and he was involved in a case where two brothers were murdered there, by "bent cops". That was ''Literature/TheCrossing''.