The Dark Hours (A Renee Ballard and Harry Bosch Novel 4), Michael Connelly, author; Titus Welliver, Christine Likin, narrators
In this fourth book in the Renee Ballard series, The plot is obvious from the beginning. From the get-go, it is obvious that there are two crimes being investigated. One is the murder of a former gang member gone straight, and the other is the rape of several women. There is a little mystery, as the reader knows that the crimes will be solved by the indomitable Renee Ballard, who is the protégé of Harry Bosch. Both are rogue cups.
Arrogant and defiant, because she really wants to work homicides, as she once did, Renee is not viewed as a team player. Often acting on her own, defying the rules, she attracts even more negative attention. Since she does not trust the department to have her back, so she often calls on Harry, instead, to back her up and protect her. This conflict makes her think about leaving the force and joining Harry Bosch doing private investigation. Her thoughts trouble her because Harry’s daughter is in the police academy. Shouldn’t she be more supportive? At the end of the book, the reader is left to wonder whether or not she will remain a police officer or join forces with Harry Bosch. Both ideas are now attractive to her, but it is a difficult choice.
Although the story is laden with hackneyed phrases and trite sounding conversations and often seems like a treatise on male toxicity vs. women’s rights and inequality, it is also eye opening in one respect. It seems that having to follow the watered down current regulations and policies of the police department actually inhibits the solving of crimes. The bureaucracy and power structure make it hard to do one’s job. Also, the “honor among thieves”, code of silence, that protects wrongdoing in the department, often punishes the victim and not the perpetrator.
The progressive, pro Democrat messages are unwelcome interruptions in the novel. The final insulting, political straw for me, was when the January 6th so-called insurrection is raised, and the murder of a policeman is mentioned. It is a false message, which has already been discredited, since the only murder that day was of an unarmed woman, climbing through a window in the Capital. The Capital Police Officer whose identity was hidden, at first, was not charged.