Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Followers of my blog or reviews know I’m a big Connelly fan, especially the Bosch books, so perhaps it is not very useful to see that I like this one, too. However, I can’t rate it quite as high as most of his earlier Bosch books. Harry has always been something of a rule-breaker who answers only to his own sense of right and wrong, but for the most part he adheres to the law and respects the legal process. In this one he verges closer to a Dirty Harry sort of attitude, a somewhat disappointing twist for those of us who respected his “purity”, such as it is.
Harry is now in his seventies and working for San Fernando P.D. The plot involves multiple crimes, some of them related. The primary thread is a gang of drug pushers who use elderly addicts as shills, shipping them from one corrupt pharmacy to another to fill phony prescriptions for opiods, keeping half the take to sell on the street. I liked the fact Jerry Edgar, his old partner, makes an appearance. Personal loyalties and trust are tested in this one. He paints a very sordid picture of the drug crisis which can be hard to stomach at times. As always, the detail of police procedure is spot on and usually fascinating.