THE DROP by Michael Connelly

 Finished Th 9/19/24

This is a trade paperback that either Janny loaned to me or it was a Christmas present. Not sure.

The title refers to a person who commits suicide by jumping from a very high place. 'Splatter' was an even better name used by the police. 

TWO CASES:

1) The son of a city official is found dead on the sidewalk in front of the Maramount Hotel in Los Angeles. Did he jump or was he dropped? It was a suicide. His wife was leaving him and the room was where the couple spent their honeymoon. The city official wanted it to be a murder because he couldn't deal with the shame of suicide. 

2) A development in a 20 year old 'Cold Case' was found. DNA from a blood splatter connects to a single individual, however this man was only eight years old at the time of the murder. He was there, however it was his foster father that committed the murder. The boy's blood was on a belt that dad used on the boy for punishment. 

 From the book's page at Kirkus Reviews: 

"Harry Bosch, the LAPD detective who insists, “I don’t want to be famous. I just want to work cases,” gets his wish times two.

Assigned to the Open-Unsolved Squad, Bosch catches a cold case with an impossible twist. Now that the lab can analyze DNA evidence from the 1989 rape and murder of Ohio student Lily Price, it’s linked conclusively to Clayton Pell, a known predator whose long history of sex crimes has already landed him in prison. Pell would be perfect as the killer if only he hadn’t been eight when the victim was slain. Before Bosch can start looking beyond the physical evidence for an explanation, he’s pulled out of past crimes and into the present by an old enemy. City Councilman Irvin Irving, the ex–deputy chief whom Bosch played a supporting role in bouncing from the LAPD years ago, demands that Bosch take charge of the investigation into his son George’s fatal plunge from his seventh-story room at the Chateau Marmont. It looks like suicide, but the Councilman claims it’s murder, and he doesn’t want it swept under the rug, even if it takes the hated Bosch to ferret out the truth. Hamstrung between two utterly unrelated cases, Bosch tries to work them both, with predictably unhappy results: scheduling conflicts, treacherous leaks to the media, trouble with his bosses and even his old partner, Lt. Kizmin Rider. Even so, it’s not long before he’s worked out pretty convincing explanations for both crimes and can begin the slow, patient process of winding them up before a pair of nasty surprises gives both of them a bitter edge.

Not by a long shot Bosch’s finest hour, but a welcome return to form after the helter-skelter 9 Dragons (2009)." 

I would read or reread anything by Connelly and it's always a pleasure.