DESERT STAR

By Michael Connelly

Synopsis

Detective Renée Ballard is given the chance to revive the LAPD's cold case unit and find justice for the families of the forgotten. The only catch is she must first unravel an unsolved murder, or lose this opportunity of a lifetime... Harry Bosch is top of the list of investigators Ballard wants to recruit. The ex-detective is a living legend - but for how long? Because Bosch has his own agenda: a crime that has haunted him for years - the murder of a whole family, buried out in the desert - which he vowed to close. With the killer still out there and evidence elusive, Bosch is on a collision course with a choice he hoped never to make...

Sample Player

Narrator	Christine Lakin
Length	9hrs 37mins
Catalogue No.	20336
Publisher	Orion Books; 2022

Other audiobooks by Michael Connelly

ANGELS FLIGHT

An African-American lawyer, infamous for his lawsuits alleging racism by LAPD police officers, is murdered on the eve of a sensational trial. Harry Bosch, facing a suspect list that includes half the LAPD, finds himself yet again in charge of a case that no one else will touch, and he's got to take a long, hard look at some of his colleagues in a police department that is rife with suspicion and hatred.

THE BLACK BOX

In a case that spans 20 years, Harry Bosch links the bullet from a recent crime to a file from 1992, the killing of a young female photographer during the L.A. riots, which was never solved. Like an investigator combing through the wreckage after a plane crash, Bosch searches for the "black box," the one piece of evidence that will pull the case together.

THE BRASS VERDICT

Defence lawyer Mickey Haller has had some problems, but now he's put all that behind him and is ready to resume his career. When Hollywood lawyer Jerry Vincent is murdered, Haller inherits his biggest case yet. The only problem is that detective Harry Bosch is convinced the killer must be one of Vincent's clients. Suddenly Mickey is faced with the biggest challenge of his career - how to defend a client successfully who might just be planning to murder him.

THE BURNING ROOM

In the LAPD's Open-Unsolved Unit, not many murder victims die almost a decade after the crime. So when a man succumbs to complications from being shot by a stray bullet nine years earlier, Bosch catches a case in which the body is still fresh, but any other evidence is virtually non-existent. Now Bosch and his new partner, rookie Detective Lucia Soto, are tasked with solving what turns out to be a highly charged, politically sensitive case. Starting with the bullet that's been lodged for years in the victim's spine, they must pull new leads from years-old information, which soon reveals that this shooting may have been anything but random.

CHASING THE DIME

Henry Pierce has a whole new life - new apartment, new telephone, new number. When he checks his machine, he discovers messages for a woman named Lilly, and she is in some kind of serious trouble. Pierce is inexorably drawn into Lilly's world, and it's unlike any world he's ever known - a night-time world of escort services, websites, sex and secret identities. As he tumbles through a hole, abandoning his orderly life in a frantic race to save the life of a woman he has never met, every step into her past takes him deeper into a web of inescapable intricacy.

CITY OF BONES (X Rated)

Detective Harry Bosch investigates the killing of an abused twelve-year-old boy whose bones have remained undiscovered in the Hollywood Hills for many years. X rated, contains graphic violence.

THE CLOSERS

Harry is back, assigned to the LAPD's Open-Unsolved Unit with his former cop ally and partner, Kizmin Rider. These detectives are the Closers. They are thrown into a politically sensitive and dangerous case when a white supremacist is connected to the 1988 murder of a mixed-race girl. The police department has changed, but one thing hasn't--Harry's nemesis, Irving. The former deputy chief has been pushed from power and given a virtually meaningless new role. Full of vengeance, Irving calls Harry a "retread". He watches from the sidelines like an injured bear, hoping Harry will make a mistake...

THE CROSSING

When Harry Bosch left the LAPD before they could fire him, he hired maverick Defense Attorney Mickey Haller to sue the department for forcing him out. Although it wasn't the way he wanted to go, Harry had to admit that being out of the game had its benefits. Until Mickey asked him to help on one of his cases, and suddenly Harry is back where he belongs, right in the centre of a particularly puzzling murder mystery.

THE DARK HOURS

A murder in the middle of a street party seems a senseless tragedy. But the victim had a dark past which came back to haunt him. Detective Renée Ballard connects the killing to an unsolved case last worked by ex-LAPD legend Harry Bosch. But then a new crime shatters the night shift...The Midnight Men are a deadly pair of predators who stalk the city during the dark hours and disappear without a trace. Ballard once believed her job was to bring the truth to light. In a police department shaken to the core by protests and pandemic, both cases have the power to save her—or end her...

DARK SACRED NIGHT

Detective Renée Ballard returns to Hollywood Station in the early hours to find an intruder rifling through old file cabinets. But it is none other than legendary LAPD detective Harry Bosch, working a cold case that has gotten under his skin. Ballard kicks him out, but eventually Bosch persuades her to help to finally bring a killer to justice...

A DARKNESS MORE THAN NIGHT

Terry McCaleb is persuaded to profile the killer of a small time criminal, formerly arrested by Harry Bosch for murder. He discovers the killer had left a message at the crime scene implicating Harry.

THE DROP

When evidence links a brutal murder in 1989 to a convicted rapist named Clayton Pell, the case should be watertight. Pell's DNA was found on the victim - but he was only eight years old at the time. This is not the only mystery Harry Bosch has to solve. A man jumped - or was pushed - from a window. The victim's father is Councilman Irving, who's been intent on destroying Harry's career for years. Now Irving wants Harry to head up an investigation that leads him to uncover traces of two of the city's deepest secrets.

ECHO PARK

Detective Harry Bosch reopens the case of Marie Gesto, who disappeared after walking out of a supermarket. A man accused of two other killings appears ready to confess to the earlier murder too.

FAIR WARNING

Jack McEvoy is a reporter with a track record in finding killers. But he's never been accused of being one himself. Jack went on one date with Tina Portrero. The next thing he knows, the police are at his house telling Jack he's a suspect in her murder. Maybe it's because he doesn't like being accused of a crime he didn't commit. Or maybe it's because the method of her murder is so chilling that he can't get it out of his head. But as he uses his journalistic skills to open doors closed to the police, Jack walks a thin line between suspect and detective - between investigation and obsession - on the trail of a killer who knows his victims better than they know themselves...

THE FIFTH WITNESS

Lisa Trammel had been a client of Mickey's for 8 months and although so far he'd managed to stop the bank from taking her house, the strain and sense of injustice are beginning to take their toll. But now the bank's CEO has been found dead with a bullet in his brain, and Lisa is about to be indicted for murder.

THE GODS OF GUILT

Defense attorney Mickey Haller learns that a recent murder victim was his own former client, a prostitute he thought he had rescued and put on the straight and narrow path. Haunted by the ghosts of his past, Mickey must work tirelessly and bring all his skill to bear on the case that could mean his ultimate redemption or proof of his guilt.

THE LATE SHOW

Renee Ballard, a fierce young detective works the midnight shift in Hollywood, beginning many investigations but finishing few, as each morning she turns everything over to the daytime units. But one night Ballard catches two assignments she doesn't want to part with, and as the investigations intertwine, she is forced to face her own demons and confront a danger she could never have imagined.

THE LAW OF INNOCENCE

Heading home after winning his latest case, defense attorney Mickey Haller - The Lincoln Lawyer - is pulled over by the police. They open the trunk of his car to find the body of a former client. Haller knows the law inside out. He will be charged with murder. He will have to build his case from behind bars. And the trial will be the trial of his life. Because Mickey Haller will defend himself in court. With watertight evidence stacked against him, Haller will need every trick in the book to prove he was framed. But a not-guilty verdict isn't enough. In order to truly walk free, Haller knows he must find the real killer - that is the law of innocence...

THE LINCOLN LAWYER

Mickey Haller usually defends clients at the bottom of the legal food chain, until he bags the case of a Beverly Hills rich boy arrested for brutally beating a woman. Then an investigator is murdered for getting too close to the truth...Richard & Judy Bookclub.

LOST LIGHT

Harry Bosch has left the LAPD taking with him a murder file about a production assistant killed four years before in a robbery. Now the LAPD thinks the money was used for the training of terrorists, and they plan to release the killer hoping he will lead them to the suspects. Harry comes into conflict with his former colleagues over this plan.

THE NARROWS

Harry Bosch investigates the death of Terry McCaleb, a former FBI agent, and is forced to confront a villain known as The Poet.

THE NIGHT FIRE

Harry Bosch is left a missing case file by his mentor who has recently passed away. He was the man who taught Bosch that everybody counts, or nobody counts. Why did he keep the file all these years? Bosch and LAPD Detective Renee Ballard come together again on the murder case, but was it a secret that was meant to be snuffed out?

NINE DRAGONS

The shooting of a Chinese liquor store owner brings Harry Bosch back to the moment a stranger gave a young cop sanctuary. Now the debt must be repaid, and Harry soon discovers it was no ordinary hold-up. But as he gets closer to the shady underworld, the Triads send Harry a devastating message - they have taken something of his that he holds very dear. As Harry's life implodes, he must risk everything to track a killer who knows how to get under his skin...

THE OVERLOOK

In his first case since he left the LAPD's Open Unsolved Unit for the prestigious Homicide Special squad, Harry Bosch is called out to investigate a murder that may have chilling consequences for national security. When a doctor with access to a dangerous radioactive substance is found murdered in the trunk of his car, Harry fears the murder could be part of a terrorist plot to poison a major American city.

THE REVERSAL

When defence lawyer Mickey Haller is invited by the Los Angeles County District Attorney to prosecute a case for him, he knows something strange is going on. Mickey's one of the best American legal brains in the business, and to switch sides likes this would be akin to asking a fox to guard the hen-house. But the high-profile case of Jason Jessup, a convicted child killer who spent almost 25 years on death row before DNA evidence freed him, is an intriguing one. But as a new trial date is set, it starts to look like he's been set up…

THE SCARECROW

Crime reporter Jack McEvoy, delving into the case of a 16-year-old drug dealer who has confessed to murder, soon realises that the confession is bogus. When his investigation leads him into the digital world of data collocation services, Jack sets off a digital tripwire and the killer - the Scarecrow - now knows he's coming.

TRUNK MUSIC

Detective Harry Bosch of the LAPD is called in to investigate when a Hollywood producer, Tony Aliso, is found dead in the boot of his car. Evidence suggests that this is a Mafia hit but nothing is that simple for Harry! Contains some offensive language.

TWO KINDS OF TRUTH

Harry Bosch is back as a volunteer, working cold cases for the San Fernando police when he is called out to a local drug store where a young pharmacist has been murdered. Bosch and the town's 3-person detective squad sift through the clues, which lead into the dangerous, big business world of prescription drug abuse.

VOID MOON

Leaving prison Cassie Black vowed never to commit another robbery, but was tempted by one last, easy job. This angered someone very powerful and Cassie soon found herself fleeing for her life. Contains some offensive language and graphic violence.

THE WRONG SIDE OF GOODBYE

Harry Bosch is working as a part-time detective in the town of San Fernando, when he gets the invitation to meet with ageing billionaire Whitney Vance. When he was eighteen Vance had a relationship with a Mexican girl called Vibiana Duarte, but soon after becoming pregnant she disappeared. Now Vance wants to know whether there is an heir to his vast fortune.... and Bosch is the only person he trusts to undertake the assignment.