History Literature / TheLastCoyote

Harry Bosch is on involuntary stress leave after having flung his commanding officer, Lieutenant Harvey Pounds, through a glass window after Pounds interfered with his interrogation of a suspect. Bosch is required under the terms of his suspension to go to therapy sessions with a psychiatrist, in which Harry has to face uncomfortable truths about himself and his past.

* ArcWords: It is in this novel that "everybody counts or nobody counts" becomes Harry's personal CatchPhrase, even referred to by himself as "my rule." In [[Literature/TheConcreteBlonde the previous book]], it was just "words on the wall at Parker Center," but here it's treated as [[RetCon a philosophy that Harry has always believed and always lived by]].

* ChekhovsGunman: Marjorie Lowe's old friend and fellow hooker Meredith Roman is introduced at the start of Bosch's investigation when Harry interviews her. She then departs the narrative until the end when she's revealed to be the murderer.

** Harry remembers how Irvin Irving once told him that that he, Irving, was the beat cop who found Marjorie Lowe's body in 1961. That happened in ''Literature/TheConcreteBlonde''. He also asks Times crime reporter Keisha Russell how it's going taking the cop beat from Bremmer--Joel Bremmer the reporter was a character in the early Bosch novels who was key to the plot of ''The Concrete Blonde''.
** Harry looks at a postcard from "Sylvia" and generally is depressed about getting dumped by her. Sylvia Moore was Harry's girlfriend in ''Literature/TheBlackIce'' and ''Literature/TheConcreteBlonde'' before breaking up with him at the end of the latter novel.
** Harry tells Dr. Hinojos how he tracked down his biological father, his mother's lawyer, only to discover that his father was in the last stages of cancer. That's in ''Literature/TheBlackIce''.

* DamnYouMuscleMemory: Harry instinctively reaches for his gun a couple of times. Being on Involuntary Stress Leave, he doesn't have it. Also, at the climax, he's about to give one of the cops responding to the 911 call his badge before he remembers that he doesn't have that, either.

* DisneyVillainDeath: The final struggle between Bosch and Gordon Mittel ends with Mittel plunging off the Mulholland hillside to his death.
* DisposableSexWorker: Bosch is strongly against this trope, always saying that "Everybody counts or nobody counts." So even if the victim hadn't been his mother, he still wouldn't be impressed by the half-assed report that Detectives Eno and [=McKittrick=] filed on Marjorie Lowe in 1961.

* DrivenToSuicide: Meredith Roman kills herself right after Bosch's visit, because she is the murderer.

* FosteringForProfit: Part of Harry Bosch's sad backstory. When he was sixteen and living in the orphanage, a guy named Earl Morse took him in as a foster child. Morse was a baseball coach and got really focused on teaching young Harry how to pitch. Eventually Harry figured out that Morse adopted Harry, who was a lefty, for the sole purpose of making him into a pitcher. After Bosch said he'd never touch a baseball again, Morse gave up and signed the papers to allow Harry to enlist in the army.

* ImpersonatingAnOfficer: Bosch uses Pounds' name to run some DMV checks during his investigation. He later steals Pounds’ badge since he does not have his own. This leads the villains to believe that Pounds is the one investigating them, so they kidnap, torture, and kill Pounds as a result.

* InternalAffairs: Making Harry Bosch's life more difficult, as always. In this novel IAD tries to pin the Harvey Pounds murder on Bosch.

* LiesDamnedLiesAndStatistics: One of the few things Pounds is actually good at. Edgar tells Bosch about a case he pulls where a would-be thief is killed by his own screwdriver trying to steal an airbag out of a car. The death is officially classified as an accident, but fingerprints are found in the car that belong to an accomplice, who gets charged under the FelonyMurder rule. Other fingerprints in the car are the owner's, and they get run through the computers as well, revealing that the owner is wanted for an old double-homicide in Mississippi from 1976. Pounds tries to claim all three murders on the division's clearance rate on the grounds that they DID solve them, but because one was an accident and two occurred elsewhere, none are added to the homicide rate.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Bosch goes through this when he realizes that he got his Lieutenant, Harvey Pounds, killed. Bosch has been going around using Pounds' name because he's on stress leave and conducting an unsanctioned investigation. This gets Pounds killed when the bad guys think that Pounds has been the one investigating them.

* PrecisionFStrike: The normally calm and reserved Dr. Hinojos doesn't take it well when Harry tells her that he snuck into one of Gordon Mittel's fundraisers and deliberately spooked him.

* RefugeInAudacity: Basically, how Bosch avoids being searched by IAD while carrying the deceased Harvey Pounds' badge.

* ShoutOut: Briefly mentions Joseph Wambaugh, a master of the PoliceProcedural and like Connelly, a native of Pennsylvania.

* SonOfAWhore: Harry Bosch. In this, maybe the most depressing of the Harry Bosch novels, his investigation into his mother's murder reveals that his mother had found a prospective husband and was going to quit the life and reclaim Harry from reform school. All that was ruined when his mother's jealous roommate murdered her.
* TakeThat: Connelly had lived and worked in Florida before moving to Los Angeles. When Bosch visits Florida in the course of his investigation, he has very little positive to say about the state. To be fair, [=McKittrick=] has nothing good to say about L.A.

* VengeanceFeelsEmpty: Harry, after Mittel dies.

* WhamLine: "We are involved in the investigation of the homicide of Lieutenant Harvey Pounds."
* WhoWatchesTheWatchmen: Tolliver the IAD guy defends IAD to Bosch, saying "Somebody's got to police the police."
* YouJustToldMe: How Bosch gets reporter Keisha Russell to reveal that Brockman of IAD was the one who leaked the story that Bosch was a suspect in the Pounds murder.

* CowboyCop: A hallmark of Harry Bosch in every novel, and never more so than here, when he is conducting a [[ItsPersonal personal freelance investigation]] into his own mother's murder while on [[BusmansHoliday involuntary stress leave]] and using his [[UpToEleven own supervisor's badge to do it]].

** Harry looks at a postcard from "Sylvia" and generally is depressed about getting dumped by her. Sylvia Moore was Harry's girlfriend in ''Literature/TheBlackEcho'' and ''Literature/TheConcreteBlonde'' before breaking up with him at the end of the latter novel.

* ContinuityNod: Harry remembers how Irvin Irving once told him that that he, Irving, was the beat cop who found Marjorie Lowe's body in 1961.

* OneSteveLimit: Averted. One of the IAD cops who bring Harry in is named Jerry, like Harry's erstwhile partner.

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* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Bosch goes through this when he realizes that he got his Lieutenant, Harvey Pounds, killed. Bosch has been going around using Pounds's name because he's on stress leave and conducting an unsanctioned investigation. This gets Pounds killed when the bad guys think that Pounds has been the one investigating them.

Harry Bosch is on involuntary stress leave after having flung his commanding officer, Lieutenant Harvey Pounds, through a glass window after Pounds interfered with his interrogation of a suspect. Bosch is required under the terms of his suspension to go to therapy sessions with a psychiatrist, in which Harry has to face uncomfortable troops about himself and his past.

* VengeanceFeelsEmpty: Harry, after Conklin dies.

* ImprobableWeaponUser: Bosch weaponizes the 8-ball to devastating effect after he is taken captive by Mittel and stashed in a room with a pool table.

* FunetikAksent: How Connelly renders a Southern radio preacher in ''The Last Coyote''.

* TheLastCoyote: Bosch sees a coyote in the hills around his house, which may be the last one as coyotes have been rapidly disappearing from the Hollywood hills. Bosch, himself a loner and a dying breed, identifies with the coyote.

* CowboyCop: A hallmark of Harry Bosch in every novel, and never more so than here, when he is conducting a personal freelance investigation into his own mother's murder while on involuntary stress leave.

* CigaretteOfAnxiety: Bosch is so rattled by the death of Harvey Pounds that he lights up a cigarette in front of Deputy Chief Irving in an LAPD interview room--and Irving lets him.

** To a lesser extent, this novel is also the first mention of the "single-bullet theory" of love that Bosch refers to frequently in later novels, though it's not called that. It's meant here to refer to a [[FemmeFatale woman he meets in Florida]], but in the long run, it's Eleanor Wish.

** To a lesser extent, this novel is also the first place the "single-bullet theory" of love that Bosch refers to frequently in later novels. It's meant here to refer to a [[FemmeFatale woman he meets in Florida]], but in the long run, it's Eleanor Wish.

** To a lesser extent, this novel is also the first place the "single-bullet theory" of love that Bosch refers to frequently in later novels. It's meant here to refer to a DarkLady lover he meets in Florida, but in the long run, it's .

* ShoutOut: Briefly mentions Creator/JosephWambaugh, a master of the PoliceProcedural and like Connelly, a native of Pennsylvania.

* ShoutOut: Briefly mentions Joseph Wambaugh, a master of the PoliceProcedural and like Connelly, a native of Pennsylvania.