Echo Park is the 17th novel by American crime-writer Michael Connelly

Michael Connelly

Michael Connelly is an American author of detective novels and other crime fiction, notably those featuring LAPD Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch and criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller. His books, which have been translated into 36 languages, have garnered him many awards...

, and the twelfth featuring the Los Angeles detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch.

Plot summary

In 1993, Harry Bosch and his partner Jerry Edgar caught the Marie Gesto case. Marie was a young equestrian who went missing. Her car and clothing turned up in a garage but her body was never found. Bosch and Edgar had pegged a likely culprit — the son of a wealthy and powerful industrialist, but the detectives never found enough evidence to charge the suspect and the case went cold. Between then and the start of this novel, Bosch had retired from the LAPD and worked as a private investigator for three years but returned to the force because things didn't work out they way he thought they would in retirement. Now, nearing 60, Bosch is working in the prestigious Open-Unsolved Unit at Parker Center, going over cold cases with his most recent partner, Kizmin "Kiz" Rider. A serendipitous traffic stop in L.A.'s Echo Park neighborhood

Echo Park, Los Angeles, California

Echo Park is a hilly neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, northwest of Downtown Los Angeles and southeast of Hollywood.-History:At the end of the 19th century, when the hills were still covered with native vegetation, a horse-drawn streetcar line served the dirt road that is now Echo Park Avenue...

 nabs Reynard Waits, a man with body parts in his van on the floorboard in front of the front seat. Detective Freddy Olivas is working the case and Richard O'Shea is the prosecutor assigned. Soon Waits has confessed to a string of slayings involving prostitutes and runaways, as well as to two earlier murders: one of a pawnshop owner during the 1992 riots

1992 Los Angeles riots

The 1992 Los Angeles Riots or South Central Riots, also known as the 1992 Los Angeles Civil Unrest were sparked on April 29, 1992, when a jury acquitted three white and one hispanic Los Angeles Police Department officers accused in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King following a...

, the other of Marie Gesto. When the Gesto case files are reexamined, it seems that Waits had called the police shortly after the murder, pretending to be a tipster, but Bosch and Edgar never followed up on the tip. Without this costly error, Waits could have been implicated within a week of Gesto's disappearance.