This latest Bosch outing is its own accomplishment: brooding and intricate, suspenseful and sad. In short, it’s another terrific Michael Connelly mystery ... Because Connelly is such a hardboiled master, he casually sidesteps the usual narrative convention and does not intertwine these two plots. Instead, readers experience the stressful chaos of Harry’s overloaded and divided life.
Connelly is an old hand at weaving together several major plots. The two he creates in The Wrong Side of Goodbye are just the kind of plots that make the Bosch books so irresistible: They combine the procedural, with its emphasis on the detail-oriented mechanics of investigation, with engaging human stories to which both Bosch and the reader connect. Sometimes an investigation turns on something as small as a still-warm bag of fast food or that solid-gold pen; sometimes what leads Bosch to the truth is his talent for seeing into the human heart, for good or ill.
...readers will appreciate Harry Bosch not only as an intrepid investigator but a man whose identification with and allegiance to society’s underdogs make him acutely aware of prejudice against Latinos and homosexuals ... While The Wrong Side of Goodbye may not stand shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the stronger entries in the Bosch oeuvre — or boast the high-octane, blood-spattered crimes — it is immensely satisfying to see Bosch’s sustained and deepened passion for his mission undiminished by age or circumstance.
Each of these books is as memorable for its locations as it is for narrative or even denouement, and The Wrong Side of Goodbye really takes Harry traveling. ... All of it is etched in indelible detail and with great care. The people of The Wrong Side of Goodbye may not be with you by the next time Harry comes around. But the settings will be etched into the Bosch road map of California life.
...[the] narrative rolls out in a perfect parade of action, memory, emotion, color and tension ... Of course Harry still gets in people’s faces and then is embarrassed by his temper, and like Mr. Connelly, he is obsessive about details. He and the author also seem to share a love of work to be done. That’s good news for all Harry Bosch fans.
The Wrong Side of Goodbye is the twenty first Harry Bosch story and it is just as good or better than the first one was. Connelly’s talent is not showing its age ... There is also the double pleasure of having Harry’s half-brother Mickey Haller assist him with the legal side of the private case ... it is fresh and innovative from the first page till the last.
...another masterful Michael Connelly mystery ... The paired cases give readers an inside look at the chaotic and stressful balancing act that Bosch walks in his life. They also lend urgency to this highly recommended book.
Both tracks produce lots of surprises and surprise endings. Bosch’s legion of readers will come away entertained — and gratified that in his acknowledgments, Connelly all but promises yet another Bosch tale. To be sure, readers unfamiliar with the Los Angeles area’s highway system may wonder why Connelly spends so many paragraphs in tracking Bosch’s driving routes.
