I have followed Michael Connolly’s “Harry Bosch” series of police procedural novels since they first came out. The character arcs are in real time. The lead character is now old, retired, fighting cancer but still able to mentor those who’ve become the primary protagonists. In his latest, “The Waiting,” those are young LAPD detective Renee Ballard and Bosch’s daughter Maddie, now in her third year on LAPD herself.
Connolly’s novels capture the politics of policing, particularly in the big city. In “The Waiting,” there’s a Gascon-like “progressive” district attorney who dislikes the police so much that he won’t file charges on the most infamous murder in Los Angeles history. His motive? To deny his political enemy, an honest chief of police, the credit his department (and Renee and Maddie) deserve.
For gun people, the Bosch novels are better than most. Renee carries a Glock 17 and a Ruger LCP .380 for backup, guns which last I knew were indeed approved by LAPD. About the only technical point I’d quibble with in “The Waiting” is when a bad guy points a Glock at Renee, not realizing she has cleverly unloaded it beforehand, and pulls the trigger. Click. When it doesn’t go off, he keeps pulling the trigger and gets three more clicks. Gun people realize that Glocks don’t work that way: the slide would have to be activated to reset the trigger after that first “click,” because Glocks don’t have double strike capability.
But there’s a bigger lesson for gun owners in the book’s subplot. Renee leaves her duty gun, badge, wallet and phone in her car when she goes to the beach, locking the vehicle but leaving the key in a magnetic box inside the wheel well. Of course, gun and badge and all get stolen. Here approach to retrieving it is clever but totally out of bounds. It’s a reminder that firearms should never be left in unattended motor vehicles unless they’re locked in a secure safe therein, and car keys should remain on one’s person. Stolen guns end up in the hands of criminals, as happens in this novel.