The Wrong Side of Goodbye

/ beckmank

The Wrong Side of Goodbye (Harry Bosch Series)

By Michael Connelly

Rating 4/5 Stairs

wrongsideofgoodbyeOne of my favorite aspects of the Harry Bosch series is that the series is not lost to time. Over the course of 20 books (this one is #21), we’ve watched Harry’s ups and downs in the LAPD Homicide Division, some PI work, and then back to the LAPD in the Open-Unsolved Unit (cold cases). We’ve seen Harry flounder through a few relationships, and struggle to raise his daughter on her own. He’s caught a lot of bad guys, and burned a lot of bridges along the way.

For the last few books, Harry Bosch has been inching closer and closer to (an unwanted) retirement with the LAPD, and I’ve wondered what he would do when that happened. The question is answered in The Wrong Side of Goodbye. Harry is working as a private investigator (no surprise there), and he is also working as a volunteer cold case investigator for the San Fernando Police Department. Solving crimes and helping victims is in his blood, and he’s happy to still be working and making a difference.

If memory serves, The Wrong Side of Goodbye takes place a few years after The Burning Room (book #19), and maybe a year after The Crossing (#20, which was a combined Mickey Haller/Harry Bosch mystery). Harry is an empty nester, with his daughter in her second year at a nearby college. As always, Harry lives for his work. He’s working two cases simultaneously, the first is searching for a potential heir to a vast fortune on the PI side, and the second is trying to catch the Screen Cutter, a serial rapist in San Fernando.

As always, this is a fast-paced page turner. Mr. Connelly is excellent at keeping the pace steady, and I constantly found myself reading late into the night, “just one more chapter.” He also brings Mickey Haller into the picture as a minor character, and it’s always fun to see the two half brothers working together.

Great mystery/thriller for all you armchair detectives out there.

15 thoughts on “The Wrong Side of Goodbye”

  1. Thank you! Michael Connelly is my favorite crime writer and I can identify well with Harry Bosch; I have the entire collection, so this book I good to learn about.

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      • I have The Burning Bed ( I think that’s the title) but have not read it as yet. My faves are The Last Coyote, City of Bones, Angels Flight, Echo Park, Trunk Music, et al). I adore him completely. I met his first cousin, too ( Connelly’s) and evidently our favorite author is somewhat sociologically repressed.

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      • They are all so great. I would love to see Mr. Connelly at a book talk, I think it would be so interesting. I love how he works with people from the LAPD (or retired) to get as much of his facts in line as he can for each book.

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      • He was born in Philadelphia, and so was I. His first cousin Tom is my acquaintance, and Tom had seen Mr. Connelly at a wedding.

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      • I have the Lincoln Lawyer and I have never read it: I have nearly all of Connelly’s books with Harry Bosch and some with MacEvey, so it’s time I began to read the Haller series.

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      • Oh I LOVE the Lincoln Lawyer. Mickey Haller and his whole ethics dilemma as a defense attorney is so interesting. And I love when he and Bosch get to work together. The last book (The Crossing) was great because you had Mickey’s defense strategy versus Bosch’s police mentality.

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    • Erika, I jumped in to my first Connelly with The Lincoln Lawyer, which is the first Mickey Haller novel. Loved it. So I picked up a Bosch at the library. (Probably the latest release at the time or close to it.) Loved it. Read a few more random pick ups from the library and then went back to the beginning to read the remainder in order. So you really could pick up (almost) any of them and enjoy it. There are a few where background info would make the story more meaningful – Nine Dragons immediately comes to mind. Would def read some earlier ones so you know about Bosch and Eleanor’s relationship for that one. And the Mickey Haller ones are good to read in order, there are only 6 or 7 “Lincoln Lawyers” and it’s fun to see his progression. But if you want to pick one up this one or The Burning Room would be great to try. Or you can just start at the beginning. 😉

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