History Literature / TheBlackIce

Bosch investigates the death, apparently by suicide, of narcotics officer Calexico Moore. At first it appears to be an open-and-shut case, with Cal Moore found dead in a fleabag hotel, and a match to his fingerprints. But Harry Bosch is suspicious, and he grows more suspicious when he finds out that Moore was the reporting officer on a murder in an alley the day before he disappeared. He grows still more suspicious when the unidentified Mexican corpse in the alley is traced to Mexicali, Mexico--where Cal Moore grew up. Eventually Bosch stumbles into a major conspiracy involving murder and drug-smuggling of the cocaine-heroin mixture called "black ice".

* TheAlcoholic: Lucius Porter, a broken-down old homicide cop with a bulbous red alcoholic's nose, routinely drunk during the day. Porter's retirement from the LAPD the day after Cal Moore's suicide raises Bosch's suspicions, especially when Bosch discovers that Moore was the reporting officer on the anonymous Mexican murder victim that Porter was investigating.
* AndThatWouldBeWrong: Bosch joins up with the DEA and the Mexican ''federales'' for a raid on Zorillo's compound in the Mexican town of Mexicali, with one of the goals being to take Zorillo into custody for a string of murders committed in Los Angeles (including two police officers). However, even though the Mexican government is cooperating with the raid itself, they historically do not extradite their citizens to the United States. DEA Agent Ramos has a plan to bring Zorillo to the American justice system anyway. He tells Bosch that Zorillo is going to resist arrest during the raid and suffer an injury that won't be serious but will look bad enough to need medical attention. They will then use one of the helicopters to evacuate him to a hospital for treatment. [[ContrivedClumsiness The pilot, however, will mistake the lights at a hospital on the American side of the border for the hospital on the Mexican side]], at which point, the American officials can arrest him and bring him to American courts. [[SarcasmMode Ramos remarks that they might have to put a letter of reprimand in the pilot's personnel file for that.]] [[spoiler: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] when Zorillo escapes the raid anyway.]]
* BatmanGambit: [[spoiler: Moore's plan was this in spades. He has been fronting for a Mexican drug lord named Humberto Zorillo, who was his half-brother from the Mexicali barrio. He wants to take over the operation and make a clean break from the LAPD. He writes an anonymous letter to InternalAffairs that implicates him in his own scheme, but doesn't have enough details to bring him up on charges right away. He then arranges for Zorillo to meet him in LA, and kills Zorillo in a way that he can arrange the scene to look like his own suicide. He kills Zorillo in a sleazy motel room that he had rented for a month and paid cash up front, ensuring that the body won't be discovered immediately. Knowing that Irving, who is the commander of IAD, will want to immediately identify the body so he can close the investigation of Moore's activites and protect the department's reputation, Moore switches the fingerprint card in his personnel file with one that has Zorillo's prints on it, since he has seen Irving use the p-file in that way before. And just in case the suicide angle doesn't play, he leaves behind a file for Bosch that contains information suggesting a motive for Moore's murder to cover up two other murders related to a drug-smuggling and distribution ring. The only reason it didn't work is because [[{{Determinator}} Bosch]] was the investigating officer of those two other murders, and he [[ThereAreNoCoincidences doesn't believe in coincidences like that]].]]

* {{Bookends}}: The beginning of the book has Bosch responding to the apparent suicide of Cal Moore via a double shotgun blast to the face. The end of the book has Bosch killing Cal Moore via a double shotgun blast to the face.

** One of the three Christmas cards Bosch gets is from the prison at Tehachapi. The book doesn't name the sender but it's Eleanor Wish, one of the two DetectiveMole characters from previous Connelly novel, ''Literature/TheBlackEcho''.
** Teresa Corazon mentions Malathion-spraying helicopters and Harry says they make him dream of [[TheVietnamVet Vietnam]]. This references Harry's introductory scene in ''Literature/TheBlackEcho''.

* DirtyCop: An LAPD cop is a heroin kingpin, who faked his own death to boot.

* EvilCounterpart: It eventually becomes clear that Cal Moore is Harry Bosch's Evil Counterpart. Both were illegitimate children who weren't recognized by their fathers, and both became LAPD cops. While Bosch eventually forgave his father, and became dedicated to justice, Cal Moore turned bitter and became a drug lord.
* FakingTheDead: It turns out that Calexico Moore faked his own death.

* FunWithAcronyms: Moore's narcotics squad was the "BANG squad", for Boulevard Anti-Narcotics Group. Bosch regards it as a ""slick, media-grabbing name."

* NeverSuicide: The suicide was actually FakingTheDead.

* PinkMist: "Bosch felt a slight mist on his face that he also knew by smell was blood," after he delivered a shotgun blast to Cal Moore's face.
* PosthumousCharacter: The late J. Michael Haller, Bosch's father, appears in flashback. Most of the novel explores the life of Calexico Moore, found dead in a hotel room in the opening scene. And the ending reveals that the real Posthumous Character is Zorillo the drug lord, as Moore killed him and assumed his identity.
* PsychoSerum: The titular “Black Ice” is a cocktail of black tar heroin, cocaine and PCP. Cal Moore describes it as “the cocaine high with the legs (duration) of heroin and culminating in the (violence inducing) kick of PCP”. Cal states that if this hits the streets, murderous zombies will be everywhere.
* RedLightDistrict: Hollywood. TruthInTelevision. Bosch talks a lot about all the druggies and street hookers all over the place, and how the sad hotel where Cal Moore kills himself was already run-down thirty-odd years ago when Bosch was a boy living in Hollywood with his mother.

* ThousandYardStare: Bosch has an 18-year-old petty criminal drug pusher thrown into the adult lockup overnight, in an effort to get him to divulge information. The narco cop who assisted Bosch with the arrest then has the pusher placed in the "[[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace High Power]]" cell block with the violent felons instead of the jail's drug wing, without Bosch's knowledge. When the boy comes out he's showing the Stare. Bosch is so ashamed that he immediately cuts the kid loose.

* TreacheryCoverUp: Irvin Irving and the LAPD successfully covers up the fact that Cal Moore killed some people and became a drug kingpin. He is said to have been killed in the line of duty.
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: To spare the department embarrassment, Cal Moore is given a hero's funeral.

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* FunWithAcronyms: Moore's narcotics squad was the "BANG squad", for Boulevard Anti-Narcotics Group. Bosch regards it as a "“slick, media-grabbing name.”

--> “He looked like he had aged ten years in the last ten hours. Now he had a distance in his eyes that reminded Bosch of men he had seen and known in Vietnam.”