Book Summary

A lawyer famous for his lawsuits charging the LAPD with racism and brutality is found murdered and Harry Bosch is put in charge of the team investigating.

At the foot of Angels Flight, an inclined railway in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, a lawyer is found murdered on the eve of a landmark trial. Howard Elias's lawsuits charging the LAPD with racism and brutality made him a celebrity-even as his success earned him the hatred of nearly every police officer in the city. When Harry Bosch is put in charge of the team investigating Elias's murder, he knows that his colleagues are likely to be his chief suspects. He also knows that the city's smoldering racial tensions could ignite if he missteps.

As he works night and day in the glare of a major media event, Bosch struggles with a more personally urgent mystery: trying to find out whether his wife's disappearance means she has left him for good or fallen deeper into a dangerous addiction. Bosch's sadness about his failing marriage shadows his work, leaving him doubly exhausted as the investigation is stymied by internal sabotage. As leads emerge-taking Bosch into Elias's private life, into S&M parlors and dark corners of the Internet, and into confrontation with some of L.A.'s most violent cops-the city nears the point of explosion. On streets filled with angry mobs, amid burning buildings and under fire from rooftop snipers, Bosch must find the one answer that will make sense of the case's strangely unconnected pieces-exposing himself to grave danger in the hope of saving his job, his marriage, and his city.