Some events are frozen in time and affect everyone's lives
they touch. Initially viewed as a suicide, the kidnapping
and murder of 16-year-old Rebecca Verloren is such a case.
In 1988, Rebecca was taken from her bedroom, incapacitated
by a stun gun and murdered on a hillside by her home. With
little to go on, the case was never solved. Muriel
Verloren, so traumatized by the case, has not moved an item
in Rebecca's bedroom. Robert Verloren, local chef and
restaurateur, equally traumatized, began drinking, lost his
restaurant and subsequently ended up homeless and on the
street. Now with the ability of DNA matching, the case is
reopened with the new Open-unsolved squad of the Los
Angeles Police Department.
Encouraged out of retirement, Harry Bosch and his former
partner, Kiz Rider, are given the case. The DNA found on
the gun has been matched to small-time criminal and drug-
user Roland Mackey. At first glance, Roland appears to have
no connection to Rebecca. However, as Bosch and Rider begin
to investigate the people in both Rebecca's and Roland's
lives, connections begin to emerge. While depicted as an
all-American girl in high school, evidence discovered
reveals that Rebecca was a girl with a secret life that
included a recent terminated pregnancy. But exactly who
was the father? And did that contribute to her death?
Roland is another story. After spending time in jail for
burglary and other petty crimes, Roland has landed himself
a job with a towing company. As the main "person of
interest" for the unsolved murder, Bosch and Rider focus
their attention on Roland and discover that he definitely
knows more about the case than he's revealed. But did he
kill Rebecca, or just knows who did?
THE CLOSERS is a methodical and straight forward police
procedural novel that takes the reader deep into the
workings of the LAPD. Full of power struggles and back
history, the novel moves with due diligence to the
conclusion of who actually killed Rebecca Verloren. Readers
familiar with Harry Bosch from previous Connelly novels
will have the opportunity to get reacquainted with both he
and his partner and relish the opportunity to see Bosch
once again in action. First-time readers of Connelly need
not be concerned about back story. The novel is a good
stand-alone story and the twists of the plot keep one
wanting to turn the page and figure out exactly what
happened to Rebecca.
After three years out of the LAPD, Harry Bosch returns, to find the department a different place from the one he left. A new Police Chief has been brought over from New York to give the place a thorough clean up from top to bottom. Working with his former partner, Kiz Rider, Harry is assigned to the department's Open-Unsolved Unit, working on the thousands of cold cases that haunt the LAPD's files. These detectives are the Closers—they put a shovel in the dirt and turn over the past. By applying new techniques to old evidence they aim to unearth some hidden killers and bring them to justice, for "a city that forgets its murder victims is a city lost." Harry and Kiz are given a politically sensitive case when a DNA match connects a white supremacist to the 1988 murder of Rebecca Verloren, a sixteen-year-old girl. Becky was of mixed race, and the case appears to have a racial angle. This was LA before the riots and Rodney King; the city was a powder keg waiting for a match. The detectives who worked the case all those years ago seem to have done a decent job, but something doesn't fit. Meanwhile Harry's nemesis, Deputy Chief Irving, is watching him. In the new "clean" LAPD Irving has been sidelined to a meaningless job. Compelled by vengeance, he hopes that Harry will make a slip...
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