The Late Show

by Michael Connelly

First published 2017

Detective Renée Ballard works Hollywood's night shift, starting investigations she never gets to finish. Each dawn brings the same routine: pass her cases to the day detectives and head home. The department assigned her this dead-end beat after she filed sexual harassment charges against her supervisor. Then two cases land on her desk that change everything. A prostitute lies beaten nearly to death in a parking lot. A young woman dies in a nightclub shooting. Ballard knows she should follow protocol and transfer both files at sunrise. Instead, she makes a choice that puts her career on the line. She works the cases during her off hours while still pulling night shifts. The investigations draw her deeper into the violence that defines her beat. They also force her to confront the personal demons that keep her fighting for a job that seems determined to break her.

Genres: mystery, crime, thriller, detective

Vibes: dark, emotional, fast-paced, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking

Tropes: amateur-sleuth, career-woman, enemies-to-lovers, personal-demons

Setting: Hollywood

Period: 21st-century

387 pages · Kindle Edition · Little, Brown and Company

Content warnings: abuse, sexual-assault, violence

More by Michael Connelly

Readers who liked The Late Show also liked

View on Siftivo