The Wrong Side of Goodbye, Michael Connelly, author; Titus Welliver, narrator
Detective Bosch returns in this novel to try and locate a serial rapist before he has an opportunity to stage another attack that will injure and traumatize a new victim. He is working for the police department, pro bono, for the chance to get back into detective work. His past battles with the force have followed him and made him a pariah with some who choose to ignore his previous successes in solving crimes and murder investigations in favor of holding a grudge against him for objecting to his wrongful termination and consequent suing of the police department, a suit in which he ultimately emerged the victor.
At the same time, he has been hired as a private investigator, by a terminally ill man of enormous wealth, to discover if he has an unknown heir to his fortune. Against policy, in his private pursuits, he uses the police computers, databases and resources to glean information not available to the general public. When in the one case, a murder is committed, and in the other, a police officer is kidnapped,, the action begins in earnest.
I don’t think this is the author’s best work because most of it was quite predictable. Still , what surprises there were, especially at the end, held my interest. The author presented the novel with a bit of a liberal point of view with characters voicing opinions on our legal system, illegal immigrants, greed and alternate lifestyles throughout the story, as well as giving a nod to the “right” in scenes which promoted life rather than abortion.
The narrator tended to drone a bit, which often made me lose my train of thought. I think he needed to exert a bit more emotion into his reading. That said, his presentation was ungarbled, staightforward and easy to understand.