Reviewed by Jane Tompkins

“Roger that” – the first words spoken by Michael Connelly’s new detective heroine, Renee Ballard, tell you what you can expect: a woman of few words, one of the boys, speaking the terse slang of street cops, nobody’s fool. Ballard—rarely referred to by her first name—knows the score. She gives as good as she gets, wastes no one’s time, charges hard, and never gives up. Sound familiar?  If so, it’s because in his new protagonist Connelly has once again recreated the classic detective hero, not unlike his Hieronymus Bosch, star of one of the best known series in contemporary crime fiction, the main difference being that “he” is a now a “she,” though you would hardly know it from the way she speaks, acts, and thinks.

I don’t know why Connelly chose to make his heroine so macho, so stereotypical: She’s a loner, an underdog, a stickler for doing the right thing, doesn’t get enough sleep, withstands great physical pain, hardly ever enjoys herself. She has no friends, no domestic partner, works all the time. All that differentiates her from the classic heterosexual hero is that, because she’s a woman, she can be the victim of sexual harassment, or worse.

This tried and true formula works well in The Late Show. We sympathize with Ballard because she has all the traits we like to see: She’s hard-working, loyal, knowledgeable, even crafty; she knows the ins and outs of departmental politics and practices, and she solves her cases even though she’s at a disadvantage in more ways than one. Connelly gives her just enough of a background profile to individuate her—her father, a surfer, died in a wave, mother out of the picture; she was raised by her grandmother, has a dog she’s devoted to, loves paddleboarding; she has casual sex with men she encounters here and there, and that’s it. The rest is all about the job.

The plot is a satisfying weave of two cases, neither of which Ballard is supposed to be working: When you’re on the late show (police slang for the night shift) you only report what happens, you don’t get to investigate it. But Ballard can’t keep herself from sleuthing on her own. Intelligence and luck give her an inside line on the bigger of the two cases, which gets her into trouble with her boss, who already has it in for her because she’s accused him of harassment; in the other case, outrage at the violence of a crime against a transsexual ends by putting her at the mercy of the perpetrator. She’s in hot water from start to finish, and you can’t help rooting for her all the way.

Paradoxically, at the same time that she’s walking on thin ice, Ballard is minding her procedural Ps and Qs. I’ve never read a crime novel where I was told so much about xeroxing memos, filing reports, filling out forms, submitting requests, and checking databases. Along with keeping his heroine on her uppers for most of the story, Connelly occasionally risks boring us to death with procedure. But there’s something satisfying about it. It’s formulaic, it’s detailed, it’s plodding: the stuff work life is made of. We feel we’re in the real world here.

The most interesting aspect of the novel is the way Connelly portrays the relationships that exist among the policemen Ballard works with. Her partner of many years has betrayed her; she’s constantly being surveilled and undermined by her supervisor; when interviewed, after an incident on the job, she can’t tell if her interlocutor is friend or enemy. Sometimes she reads a person right, but more often than not, she’s mistaken. And you can’t blame her. It’s a slippery world of conflicting interests, competition, and shifting alliances, where the proper solving of a case can often be sacrificed to career advancement, a nuanced account of mother out of the picture; she was raised by her grandmother, has a dog she’s devoted to, loves paddleboarding; she has casual sex with men she encounters here and there, and that’s it. The rest is all about the job.

The plot is a satisfying weave of two cases, neither of which Ballard is supposed to be working: When you’re on the late show (police slang for the night shift) you only report what happens, you don’t get to investigate it. But Ballard can’t keep herself from sleuthing on her own. Intelligence and luck give her an inside line on the bigger of the two cases, which gets her into trouble with her boss, who already has it in for her because she’s accused him of harassment; in the other case, outrage at the violence of a crime against a transsexual ends by putting her at the mercy of the perpetrator. She’s in hot water from start to finish, and you can’t help rooting for her all the way.

Paradoxically, at the same time that she’s walking on thin ice, Ballard is minding her procedural Ps and Qs. I’ve never read a crime novel where I was told so much about xeroxing memos, filing reports, filling out forms, submitting requests, and checking databases. Along with keeping his heroine on her uppers for most of the story, Connelly occasionally risks boring us to death with procedure. But there’s something satisfying about it. It’s formulaic, it’s detailed, it’s plodding: the stuff work life is made of. We feel we’re in the real world here.

The most interesting aspect of the novel is the way Connelly portrays the relationships that exist among the policemen Ballard works with. Her partner of many years has betrayed her; she’s constantly being surveilled and undermined by her supervisor; when interviewed, after an incident on the job, she can’t tell if her interlocutor is friend or enemy. Sometimes she reads a person right, but more often than not, she’s mistaken. And you can’t blame her. It’s a slippery world of conflicting interests, competition, and shifting alliances, where the proper solving of a case can often be sacrificed to career advancement, a nuanced account of the way people and organizations become self-serving, instead of carrying out the tasks they were created to perform.

The writing in The Late Show is always good, the pacing perfect, the heroine likable enough.  It’s a satisfying read. But Connelly lost a chance to create something new here. It remains to be seen if he’ll seize the opportunity the next time he uses Renee Ballard in place of Harry Bosch.~