This is the best Ballard book yet. I was utterly captivated from beginning to end. Even though we are deep into the series at this point, The Waiting feels like a fresh start. Ballard feels more independent this time around as Harry Bosch is on the sidelines of two of the three cases in this book. She's a strong enough character, fully fleshed out, at this point, that she can carry her own stories. The addition of a different Bosch, Harry's daughter, also feels like a really smart idea. While Maddy has been around for a long time, she's finally beginning to really fill her dad's shoes.
I can't wait to see what is up next for both Renee and Maddy and while Harry Bosch is one of the best characters of all time, I'm okay if he moves further and further into retirement.

Renee Ballard, police officer assigned to an LAPD cold case unit, is joined on her team by retired law enforcement volunteers and her retired mentor Harry Bosch in attempting to solve unsolved cases dating back to the 1970's. Any earlier cases will likely lead to perpetrators who have passed away. Ballard and Maddy Bosch (Harry's cop daughter), are exploring persons of interest in a 1980's string of rapes which culminated in a rape/murder.
While this is going on, Maddy comes across materials in storage facility which pertain to the 1947 unsolved murder of The Black Dahlia, Elizabeth Short.
Connolly is a master of keeping the suspense and interest growing throughout the novel, which culminates in a satisfying conclusion.

This is the 6th book featuring Renee Ballard. Harry Bosch also makes an appearance but this is clearly Renee’s book. She is leading the cold case, Open-Unsolved Unit in the LAPD. The unit has volunteers helping out and Maddie Bosch, a patrol office and Harry’s daughter starts volunteering in hopes of boosting her career - she wants to be a detective. The unit comes across some DNA from a familial relation to the Pillowcase Rapist, a serial rapist and murderer who went quiet for twenty years. It was very interesting to see how the team kept finding more clues to tie things together along the way while also trying to look into another case that involved the Black Dahlia murder from 1947. As if that wasn’t enough action, there is one other story line about Renee trying to track down her badge, ID, and gun that were stolen from her car while she was surfing. This ends up being much more complicated once she finds out who stole the items and enlists Harry’s help. The author gives us more backstory on Renee and how she grew up. The plot was very interesting and moved along well. I’ve been a huge fan of Michael Connelly for a long time and this book did not disappoint. I give the book 5 stars out of 5.

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for this digital ARC in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on Oct. 15, 2024.

Nice story featuring Ballard and Maddie Bosch. Plenty of intrigue with great twists and turns. Nice story featuring Ballard and Maddie Bosch. Plenty of intrigue with great twists and turns.

I have read nearly all of Connelly’s novels, especially in the Bosch universe. I have to say, this may have been my favorite. It didn’t have the most complex storyline or the most thrilled “solve” but I think the story as a whole was the most complete, and the book itself was the most entertaining. I thought the addition of Maddie to the group adds intrigue and keeps that original Harry connection as well, which is fun. Overall just a great book.

Thank you to NetGalley, Michael Connelly, and Little, Brown and Company for providing me an advanced reading copy.

This is the sixth in the Renee Ballard series, a spinoff of the Harry Bosch stories and Harry does make an appearance. Renee’s gun, badge and ID are stolen. Fearing disciplinary action, she doesn’t report it and when her investigation uncovers a possible terrorist plot, she seeks the assistance of Bosch.

Meanwhile, her unsolved cases unit gets a DNA break on an old serial rapist/murder case and it just might involve a local judge. A new addition to the team is Maddie Bosch, Harry’s daughter, who thinks she might be able to solve a very old famous LA case.

As a fan of the old Harry Bosch series, I love that Renee keeps her connection with him. I also like police procedurals, although Renee’s flaunting of the rules and unconventional practices make me a bit uncomfortable. But, then again, Harry never played by the rules either.

Connelly is a skilled story teller. Well plotted, this is another welcome addition to the Bosch/Ballard legacy. It would, however, work well as a standalone for those new to this series.

Thanks to #NetGalley and @LittleBrown for the DRC.

The Waiting is another really strong installment in the Renée Ballard series. Michael Connelly is hands down one of the best crime fiction writers out there, and I was beyond thrilled to get my hands on an ARC of it! I devoured it in about three sittings because it was just that fast-paced and engaging.

In The Waiting, Detective Renée Ballard, as head of the LAPD's Open-Unsolved Unit, works to catch a serial rapist after a DNA connection points to a suspect from twenty years ago. As she navigates dangerous secrets and the theft of her LAPD badge, she receives help from an unlikely source: Harry Bosch's daughter, Maddie. This fast-paced thriller brings Ballard's story to the forefront while maintaining suspense through many different subplots. The book balances three subplots: the hunt for a 20-year-old serial rapist and murderer known as the Pillowcase Rapist, Renée's stolen badge (which turns out to be part of a much bigger plot and where Bosch steps in to help), and the infamous Black Dahlia murder. It’s a lot to juggle, but it keeps things moving at a good pace.

My biggest gripe with Desert Star was that it felt more like a Bosch book than a Ballard one, but The Waiting totally fixes that. Bosch is still in the mix, but he's back in his supporting role while Renée takes center stage. The entire story is from her perspective, and we get to learn a lot more about her backstory, which I loved. Once again, Connelly proves he's a master at writing believable characters—especially strong female leads like Ballard. If you're a fan of crime fiction, you won’t want to miss this one! A solid four stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for the advanced reader’s copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Another terrific Ballard and double Bosch adventure.
Renee is on the hunt for her badge, gun and wallet which were stolen while she was surfing at
at a local spot. Not wanting anyone from her Unsolved Crimes Unit, and especially not her Captain, to know they're missing, she enlists Harry's help in setting up a sting to recover them.
At the same time, her squad is looking into an unsolved serial rapist case and Bosch's daughter, also a cop, comes to volunteer on her squad.
Just a great dual story, complementing each other with the usual terrific Connelly characters and ever intriguing and thrilling plot.
One can never have too many Boschs.

Fans of Michael Connelly’s Renee Ballard series won’t be disappointed with this one. Its title THE WAITING, also the title of a Tom Petty tune, grounds the book. The chorus lyric, the waiting is the hardest part, underscores the book’s promo: In cold cases, it’s not the hope that kills you. It’s the waiting. There is a seemingly endless wait is for evidence to be found, processed and decisions held up through the chain of command. To offset this, Connelly moves the story along with three investigations.

The main protagonist, Detective Renee Ballard, now heads up the LA Police Department’s Open Unsolved Unit. This unit is comprised mainly of volunteers who use evolving technology to solve cold cases.As a way of relaxing, Ballard often surfs before she gets to work. The book opens at the beach when her ID, police shield and gun are stolen from her locked car. I’m not quite sure why she believes this loss will derail her career but she does and decides not to report it. In the process of trying to track the thieves down, she discovers a complicated and potentially dangerous conspiracy. She calls on former partner and longtime Connelly character Harry Bosch, now retired and recovering from cancer, to help her. This is the only investigation where Harry plays an active role, although he is present throughout the novel, providing advice and backup where needed.

A major unsolved crime has the attention of her team. They are using DNA familial data to potentially connect a young man recently arrested to the Pillowcase Rapist—a man who had raped and terrorized women in the early 2000s. It is believed his last attack ended in murder. The DNA familial search produces a strong lead to his possible identity and all of the team pursue this.

One of the members of the team, Colleen, a recent divorcee who has recently become an empty nester, is portrayed through the book as someone who wants to do more than she is allowed to. You know there will be trouble. The undercurrent is there and the reader is pulled along not knowing what she’s about or to trust her.

A third and perhaps most interesting case appears when Maddie Bosch, Harry’s daughter, asks Renee if she can join the unit on her days off as a police officer. She wants to become a detective and thinks this will enhance her investigative experience. Ballard’s volunteers are limited in what they can do and she thinks Maddie would be an asset. And she does not disappoint. Maddie comes in with a strong lead. Material she discovered in an abandoned storage unit may be a connection to the horrific Black Dahlia case, unsolved since 1947. Of course, the police bureaucracy has a problem with her involvement.

The cases in themselves are all interesting ones, particularly as they are solved with new technology. Also of interest is the vivid description of the various LA neighborhoods. Annoying, but probably true are the constant impediments by bureaucracy and political interests that contribute to the waiting of the book’s title.

It was a good read and I recommend.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Little Brown for the privilege of reading an advanced copy.

Michael Connelly consistently writes fast paced, entertaining police procedurals. I am a huge fan of all three of the main characters in this book - Harry Bosch, Renee Ballard and Maddie Bosch. I’m pleased that Connelly is incorporating Maddie into his books as she’s a breath of fresh air - the young cop determined to be a detective and learning the ropes.
The story starts with Renee’s badge and gun being stolen from her car at a surfing beach. She’s afraid to report it, knowing the higher ups are looking for an excuse to get rid of her. Meanwhile her OU department gets a hot shot of an old serial rapist case. But the suspect is someone who isn’t the typical criminal. And in the final subplot, Maddie asks to volunteer on the cold case unit because she thinks she has solved a famous cold case and wants to investigate further.
As another reviewer commented, Connelly doesn’t feel the need to link the various cases being worked on, which lends a much more realistic air to the story.
Connelly writes in an intoxicating fashion - fast paced, easy to envision, well defined characters. I inevitably get hooked and fly through his books. This is no exception. I also appreciate that Connelly didn’t see the need to provide an OTT ending. Instead, he relies on smart detective work, even if sometimes a little outside the rules.
My thanks to Netgalley and Little, Brown for an advance copy of this book.

I first want to thank NetGalley for allowing me too read and review an ARC of Michael Connelly's upcoming latest book featuring Renee Ballard and Harry Bosch. I approached this book with high expectations having read every one of the books featuring Harry Bosch. However, I have to say I was mildly disappointed with his latest book, The Waiting. As with the latest books, The Waiting features Bosch in a supporting role as his healthy deteriorates from cancer. The Waiting features Renee Ballard as the main character with Harry's daughter, Maddie, taking an increasingly important role in the story after she joins the Open Unsolved group that Ballard leads featuring a group of volunteers. There are two themes in the book - the first revolving around Ballard's desperate search to recover her badge and gun after they're stolen while she's surfing while the second theme features the efforts of the Open Unsolved volunteers to solve the infamous Black Dahlia case after Maddie Bosch becomes a member of the group. The story featuring efforts to solve the Black Dahlia murder is definitely the most compelling section of the book.

While long-time fans of Michael Connelly's Bosch/Bosch and Ballard books will definitely enjoy this book, readers just coming to appreciate these series would advised to catch up with earlier entries, especially those featuring Harry Bosch.

The quandary in which many of us devoted readers find ourselves is that we want a great book to last forever, but the better the book, the faster it goes by. I'm not the world's fastest reader, Even so, this roughly 400 page book was done in a day.

Without giving too much away, Renee Ballard finds herself both a crime victim and avenger of victims, including a notorious crime from LA history, a planned crime that she and Harry Bosch work to prevent, and a series of crimes that brings the danger very close to home. Meanwhile, the newest Bosch in the LAPD, Maddie, is continuing to grow as an officer with an eye towards following in her father's footsteps.

Michael Connelly has put together another story to pull you in, with characters who are flawed but noble people the reader cares about. Another great, five-star story!

This is a Renee Ballard book, she’s in charge of the old, unsolved case files. Several of the people from past books are also included in this new book. Harry Bosch and his daughter appear in this story. It talks about Renee’s mom who is a new character, as well as exploring different areas of LA. It is interesting to read about how they try to solve cases to give people closure. Highly recommend!

Thanks for the ARC! This is another great addition to the Ballard / Bosch series of books, and it was hard to put down from the first page. Seeing Maddie start to come into her own as a police officer, as her Dad is fading away from that life is a poignant juxtaposition, and I love the parallels between the case she takes on, and Bosch's first case. Ballard continues to be a driving force, and I look forward to many more of her adventures, either with our without help from the Bosch family members.

5 stars out of 5

Wow, this book had me hooked from the start and I was on the edge of my seat. I could not flip the pages fast enough. There are a lot of moving pieces in the book but they all tied together by the ending. The characters were well developed and likable. I think this book can be read as a standalone since we get a lot of background information on the characters and whats going on. Overall, such a great book and I highly recommend for anyone looking for a fast paced thriller!

In The Waiting, we met Renee Ballard, who works at the LAPD in the unsolved crimes unit. While Renee was out surfing her car was broken into and her gun, badge, and ID were stolen. She needs to track down who did this and in doing so, she uncovers something sinister going on. She is also working on finding the Pillowcase Rapist after new DNA comes in that shows a familial match. Renee also welcomes Bosch's daughter Maddie to her unit to help crack some of the cold cases piling up. Maddie picks one of the most notorious cases to lay her eyes on, but will she solve it?

Thank you Netgalley and Little, Brown and Company for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I’ve been reading Bosch since the early 90’s. Since the books have all been written in present time, life has moved on; and Bosch, like the rest of us, has gotten older. Much older. This book has served to push a new sheriff into town, in the form of Harry’s patrol officer daughter Maddie. The story itself is solid, with an interesting cold case to solve. I do, however, question the case that will fast track Maddie into making detective; it’s the most famous unsolved murder in LAPD history, and stretches credulity pretty thin. Still, I’m looking for more from Ballard and Bosch, Maddie Bosch.

I get that everyone wants Harry, so do I. But I have to face the fact that like me, he’s getting pretty doggone old to be carrying the story,

Another great installment from author Michael Connelly. I have read all the Harry Bosch books and only a few with Renee Ballard. I was a little disappointed that Harry didn’t have a larger part in this story. However, he is retired, aging and sick so I guess his decrease in work on murder cases can be explained. His daughter Maddie is a large part of the cold case investigations this book covers. And am looking forward to more books including her as a supporting character. The epilogue set up a new book and I am anxious to see where it goes. Keep up the good work Mr. Connolly.

I imagine this is going to piss off a lot of people, but I'm really not a fan of this movement among mystery/thriller writers who have developed male characters we've followed for decades suddenly replacing those characters with their young and inevitably spunky daughters. Is it just a coincidence that several prominent novelists have done exactly the same thing at exactly the same time? That's doubtful. It's more likely that their publishers have pushed the view on them that aging white men are out of style and have insisted they switch to writing about women, preferably young women.

Frankly, I miss Harry Bosch, and I want to read about Harry Bosch. This book is billed as 'A Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch Novel,' but that's misleading, no doubt intentionally so. Harry Bosch is hardly present at all. This is 'A Renée Ballard and Maddie Bosch Novel.' Poor Harry barely rates a walk on. Worse, it seems to me that both Ballard and Maddie Bosch are unattractive characters, each pandering in a different way to the currently hot cultural stereotypes of women that publishers think are in style.

Look, I have no problem with Connelly writing Maddie Bosch novels if he wants to, but I do have a problem with them being flogged as Harry Bosch novels. The way this is going, I fully expect Jack Reacher to discover he has a daughter and ask her to take over his rambling through America while he retires to the suburbs of Dallas. Don't tell me that's impossible. White men of a certain age are just so passe, don't you know?

The Waiting is a solid addition to Michael Connelly’s ongoing Detective Renee Ballard series. Add in a bit of Harry Bosch and now his daughter, Maddie, for a good mystery set mostly in LA. Renee’s unorthodox methods are appreciated by some and despised by many, often getting her results but with unwanted attention. A quick, interesting read, the book leaves an open ending hopefully to be another story in the series.

Thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for the opportunity to read this ARC.

It was great to see Renee and Harry back again, though this book mainly concentrates on Renee, and was also fantastic to see Harry's daughter Maddie join the canon in an expanded role now that she's a full-fledged LAPD officer. The Waiting meshes together a few threads of stories as Renee deals with her badge and gun being stolen while surfing, which leads to a bigger crime that needs to be unraveled, all while Maddie and the cold case squad work to solve the biggest cold-case in LA history. Quite the ride and I look forward to recommending this book throughout the fall. Thank you to Little Brown and Co and NetGalley for the early access in exchange for my honest opinion.