History Literature / TrunkMusic

* JustForPun: "TNA Productions", Tony Aliso's company, is a producer of softcore porn ("tits and ass") movies.

* DoubleMeaning: The "TNA" of TNA Productions is both [[InitialismTitle the dead man's initials]] and [[JustForPun a description of their oeuvre]].

* CuffsOffRubWrists:
** Luke Goshen does this when he's uncuffed while Harry is interrogating him.
** Then the bad guy rubs his wrists after overpowering Bosch and Edgar and forcing them at gunpoint to give him the handcuff keys.

Bosch investigates the death of a man whose corpse is found in the trunk of a Rolls Royce. The corpse turns out to be Tony Aliso, a producer of ultra-cheap low-grade nudie flicks. His wife Veronica isn't a tiny bit upset when her serial adulterer husband ends up dead, but the investigation soon focuses on organized crime. Bosch and his partners discover that Aliso's cheap little production company was a front for TheMafia, laundering mob money by passing it off as film production budgets. Bosch's investigation leads into a tangled conspiracy. While all this is happening, he runs into his ex-girlfriend, former FBI agent Eleanor Wish.

* BloodFromTheMouth: When Bosch sees frothy bubbles of blood coming from Veronica's mouth he knows that "her lungs had been shredded."

* TheBusCameBack: Five books after Bosch turned Eleanor Wish in at the end of ''Literature/TheBlackEcho'', he meets her again. After serving her prison sentence Eleanor has gotten a job as [[ProfessionalGambler a Las Vegas casino poker player]].
* CallBack: There's another reference to Eleanor Wish's framed print of "Nighthawks" and how it symbolizes both Harry and Eleanor as lonely people.
* ChekhovsGunman: Powers the beat cop finds the body in the opening scene and is pretty much forgotten about afterwards, until he's revealed as the murderer.

** We get more details (e.g., the name of the actor who played Bosch) about the in-universe mini-series we first heard about in ''Literature/TheBlackEcho'' which gave Bosch the money he used to buy his Hollywood Hills home. And, of course, a bunch related to Eleanor Wish.
** Harry's fancy house in the hills, which in ''The Last Coyote'' was condemned after the 1994 earthquake, has been rebuilt.

** At the end, after spending much of the novel looking for a particular Las Vegas stripper and not finding her, Bosch finally encounters her on a random beach in Hawaii, while he's on [[spoiler:his honeymoon]], after the case has been closed.

* DirtyCop: The patrolman who found the body was part of the murder plot.
* DoubleMeaning: The ''TNA'' of TNA Productions is both [[InitialismTitle the dead man's initials]] and [[JustForPun a description of their oeuvre]].
* FairPlayWhodunit: Connelly's style throughout his writing career. This one contains a giant hint which is obvious upon a re-reading. Bosch and his partners comment about how they know Veronica must have had a male partner, due to the large shoe print. The very next paragraph has Officer Powers, who has not been mentioned since the first chapter, pop up again (it's his beat).
* {{Fanservice}}: The whole point of TNA Productions, nudie films.

* FirstNameBasis: Lt. Billets tells Bosch that he can call her Grace, and reminds him of it later.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Upon arriving in Las Vegas, Bosch thinks how people who run away from Los Angeles often wind up in there. Later, he crosses paths with Eleanor Wish, who certainly has nothing left for her in L.A.

* GunsAkimbo: Powers has a gun in each hand when he comes leaping out of the car to get Veronica.
* HandyCuffs: Officer Powers has his handcuffs moved to the front during a break in his interrogation so that he can relieve himself. He takes advantage of this to make his escape from Bosch and Edgar.
* HesBack: In-universe, Harry is just returning to the Hollywood division homicide table after serving a temporary [[ReassignedToAntarctica demotion to investigating burglaries]].

* LawOfConservationOfDetail: When the narrative recounts Powers asking to go to the bathroom, and Bosch and Edgar taking him, with events described in minute detail, it's not hard to guess that bad stuff is going to happen.

** The guys who run the prostitution website in ''Literature/ChasingTheDime'' are said to be mobbed up, but that is the word of an UnreliableExpositor, and therefore debatable.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: In-universe, how Harry feels toward himself after inadvertently getting Eleanor involved with the Las Vegas investigation and thereby undercutting all she had built up for herself in starting over.
* NighthawksShot: In ''Literature/TheBlackEcho'', Harry Bosch's girlfriend, FBI agent Eleanor Wish, has a framed print of ''Nighthawks''. They commiserate on how they've found each other, two loners together, with Eleanor even calling the two of them "a couple of nighthawks." When Bosch meets her again after several years apart in ''Trunk Music'', she still has the ''Nighthawks'' print, and Bosch wonders, after years of separation between them, if he is actually the man alone in the painting.

* ObfuscatingStupidity: When they catch Powers, Edgar holsters his weapon almost immediately. Bosch legitimately does not know if his partner was playing this trope straight, or [[TooDumbToLive the other thing]] was at work. Which the reader believes will likely come down to their opinion of Edgar in general.

---> "Rape victims were the people who evoked the most sadness in Bosch. He knew he wouldn't be able to last a month on a rape squad. Every victim he had ever scene had that stare. It was a sign that all things in their lives were different now and forever. They would never get back to what they had before."

* RippedFromTheHeadlines: Some significant after-effects of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._J._Simpson_murder_case O.J. Simpson murder case]] come up, whose verdict came in between [[Literature/TheLastCoyote the last Bosch novel]] and this one. Relevant in that Bosch works for the LAPD, whereas [[Literature/ThePoet the intervening novel]] dealt with characters who mostly had no L.A. ties (until the end of the story). Made even more apparent by the plot point of [[FrameUp whether or not the murder weapon was planted]].

* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: Once he realizes Veronica's in on the crime, Bosch's plan unfolds before us without any explanation, so naturally, it goes off without a hitch.

* WeddingFinale: After the criminal plots have all been resolved, Bosch has one last thing to do in Vegas. But this trope and absolutely every other trope having to do with the subject are [[AvertedTrope averted]]. We see Bosch ask Eleanor if she's ready, then we're back in L.A. with Bosch marching into Parker Center to slam the brakes on Chastain's [[MyRuleFuIsStrongerThanYours now-moot IAD investigation]]. Chastain tries to make it sound like a MarriageOfConvenience, but Bosch [[ShutUpHannibal shuts him down]] with the PowerOfLove.
* WhoWatchesTheWatchmen: Alluded to: Internal Affairs hatchet man John Chastain tells Bosch that he (Chastain) polices the police, leading Bosch to parry with "Who polices the police who police the police?"

* WeddingFinale: After the criminal plots have all been resolved, Bosch has one last thing to do in Vegas. But this trope and [[UpToEleven absolutely every other trope]] having to do with the subject are [[AvertedTrope averted]]. We see Bosch ask Eleanor if she's ready, then we're back in L.A. with Bosch marching into Parker Center to slam the brakes on Chastain's [[MyRuleFuIsStrongerThanYours now-moot IAD investigation]]. Chastain tries to make it sound like a MarriageOfConvenience, but Bosch [[ShutUpHannibal shuts him down]] with the PowerOfLove.