History Literature / TheNightFire

Meanwhile, both Bosch and Ballard have other cases. Bosch is working as a defense investigator for his brother Literature/MickeyHaller, on what seems to be an open-and-shut case: Haller's client confessed to murdering a judge, Judge Walter Montgomery, and DNA from the client was found under the judge's fingernail. But Haller is convinced his client didn't do it and sure enough, Bosch discovers that the seemingly simple case is actually much more complicated. Ballard for her part is investigating the death of a homeless man who died when his tent caught on fire; it looks like the man kicked over a portable gas-powered heater, but Renee has doubts.

* WorkingTheSameCase: [[spoiler:It turns out that Renee's case (the murder of the homeless man) and Harry's case for Mickey Haller (the murder of the judge) were both committed by the same person.]]

Harry Bosch attends the funeral of his first partner and mentor in homicide investigation, John Jack Thompson. He is surprised when, after the funeral, Thompson's widow gives him something she found among his possessions: a complete file for an LAPD homicide investigation, also known as a "murder book".

The murder book is about the 1990 murder of one John Hilton, a 24-year-old drug user and ex-con. Hilton was shot and killed in his car in an alley known as a hangout for drug dealers, and the detectives at the time assumed that it was a simple matter of a drug user going out to score and instead getting robbed of his money and shot. Harry is intrigued, but he's 69 years old and out of law enforcement for good after the events of previous novel ''Literature/DarkSacredNight'', so he goes to his new, informal partner, Hollywood homicide detective Renee Ballard. They agree to work the case together. They discover one puzzling detail: there is nothing in the murder book after Thompson took it out of the files, no indication that he ever worked it himself. Bosch begins to wonder just why Thompson took the file.

While all this is going on, Harry Bosch is dealing with some bad personal news: he has been diagnosed with early-stage leukemia.

* AmbiguousSituation: We never do find out if the case of the 11-year-old girl who hanged herself was really suicide or [[NeverSuicide actually murder]]. Renee has her suspicions: the mother did not cut her daughter down, and the father, when Renee made the call, did not ask how his daughter killed herself. But Ballard has no evidence.
* AmoralAttorney: Taken to the extreme. It turns out that the law firm of Michaelson and Mitchell, and specifically Michaelson and his underling Clayton Manley, have been using a hit woman to murder for them. The homeless man who burned to death was killed by the hit woman because he was actually the heir to a lot of money, money that his brother, a Michaelson and Mitchell client, wanted. And Manley had Judge Montgomery murdered because Montgomery embarrassed him in court and damaged his career.

* BrokenPedestal: Harry is very disturbed to learn the truth of why Thompson took the murder book out of the files. It turns out that Thompson wasn't investigating the case, he wanted to stop anyone else from investigating it, because John Hilton was his out-of-wedlock son, and Thompson didn't want anyone to know that his secret son was a gay ex-con drug addict.

* ChekhovsGunman: Laurie Lee Wells, a juror, seen entering the courthouse right before Judge Montgomery. Dismissed by the cops because she didn't see or hear anything (she was listening to headphones). It turns out she's the murderer, and she isn't really Laurie Lee Wells.

** Ballard remembers reading the notes of an old Hollywood beat cop with an odd talent for poetry, who described the denizens of the night as "human tumbleweeds moving with the winds of fate." This is from previous Bosch & Ballard novel, ''Dark Sacred Night''.

** After a particularly good day in court Mickey Haller says "It's like Literature/TheGodsOfGuilt are smiling on me today."

* {{Fauxshadowing}}: In the opening scene, Harry contemplates the merits of dying on the job. Despite a close call at the climax, he does not die in this book.
* GotVolunteered: How Mickey gets his current case, despite not handling murder cases any more. [[BrickJoke Brick joked]] later when Harry says his brother doesn't "volunteer" for murder cases any more.
* HoneyTrap: A ''very'' subtle one when Bosch serves the subpoena on Morales. He shows up at the fire house with a "small, square pink envelope," presumably to imply that he was visiting on the behalf of a lady who wished to express her gratitude. It works like a charm.

* KilledMidSentence: Mitchell, the non-criminal lawyer in the firm of Michaelson and Mitchell, catches Harry Bosch sneaking around. He says "I am asking you to leave this office right--", and that's when he's shot through the head by Caterina Cava.
* LeftHanging: The case of the 11-year-old-girl committing suicide is never resolved, and Renee never makes a definite determination as to whether it was suicide or murder.

-->'''Mickey Haller:''' Doctor, let me get this straight, Are you saying that Jeffrey's mental issues put him in a state of paranoia where he feared physical harm might come to him if he ''did not'' confess to this crime?
* MythologyGag: Connelly demonstrates his intent for Ballard to pick up the torch from Bosch when he specifically describes her as "both an insider and an outsider," since that's one of his oldest characterizations of Bosch, whom he used to regularly refer to as "an outsider with an insider's job."

* PinkMist: Ballard is in the middle of arresting Elvin Kidd when Kidd's wife comes out of the house with a gun, and points it at Ballard. It was a bad idea.

* PosthumousCharacter: John Jack Thompson, Bosch's mentor long ago. We learn a lot about Bosch's history with Thompson, and then we learn some things that reveal how Thompson did not live up to the high ideals he imparted to Bosch.
* ProfessionalKiller: It turns out that the homeless guy and the judge were both murdered by the same person, a female hit man named Caterina Cava.

* RememberTheNewGuy: John Jack Thompson's name is never mentioned over 22 Harry Bosch novels, until he's described in this one as Harry Bosch's first partner and former mentor. Justified, as when the Bosch series started with ''Literature/TheBlackEcho'' in 1992, Harry was already a veteran homicide cop with years of experience on the job.

* SequelHook: The third Harry Bosch novel in a row to have one. At the very end Renee and Harry agree to investigate a case in Thompson's filed, one Thompson and Bosch investigated: the unsolved murder of a female college student in 1982.

* TeamDad: Bosch shows signs of this early, when he's got his daughter's safety on his mind. Ballard doesn't appreciate his paternalist comments, and calls him on them.
* ThirdLineSomeWaiting: Typical of most Connelly novels going at least as far back as ''Literature/TheDrop''. The story starts off with Bosch being given Thompson's book on John Hilton. Then there's Bosch investigating the murder of a judge and Ballard investigating the matter of the homeless man who died in a fire. Those last two cases do connect in that the same character killed both, but the Hilton murder has nothing to do with the other two cases. There are other tertiary plots, like the chapter where Renee investigates the supposed suicide of a young girl, and Harry's leukemia diagnosis.

--> '''Wells''': I hate to say this because I've actually played this part in a TV show, but "What's this about?"

* WorkingTheSameCase: It turns out that Renee's case (the murder of the homeless man) and Harry's case for Mickey Haller (the murder of the judge) were both committed by the same person.

* BaldBlackLeaderGuy: Lt. Washington, Renee's supervisor, is described as "tall, African-American, with a shaved head." Renee has had some very bad experiences with LAPD leadership but Washington is a ReasonableAuthorityFigure.

* RealityEnsues: Harry's leukemia.

--> '''Talis''': I was putting bad guys in jail when you were giving boys blow jobs under the bleachers!

*** Barring something a future book finally coming back on Harry from ''Literature/TheBlackIce'', this is probably the longest SequelHook payoff in all of Connelly's works.

** The events of ''Literature/TheOverlook'' are discussed at length, as Bosch was exposed to radiation after a bunch of cesium was stolen from a hospital, and now he has leukemia and wants to sue the LAPD. (Barring something in teh future finally coming back on Harry from ''Literature/TheBlackIce'', this is probably the longest SequelHook payoff in all of Connelly's works.)

** The events of ''Literature/TheOverlook'' are discussed at length, as Bosch was exposed to radiation after a bunch of cesium was stolen from a hospital, and now he has leukemia and wants to sue the LAPD.

* FourLines

* AmoralAttorney: Taken to the extreme. It turns out that the law firm of Michaelson and Mitchell, and specifically Michaelson and his underling Clayton Manley, have been using a hit woman to murder for them. The homeless man who burned to death was killed by the hit woman by the hit woman because he was actually the heir to a lot of money, money that his brother, a Michaelson and Mitchell client, wanted. And Manley had Judge Montgomery murdered because Montgomery embarrassed him in court and damaged his career.

* SequelHook: The third Bosch and Ballard novel in a row to have one. At the very end Renee and Harry agree to investigate a case in Thompson's filed, one Thompson and Bosch investigated: the unsolved murder of a female college student in 1982.

Meanwhile, both Bosch and Ballard have other cases. Bosch is working as a defense investigator for his brother Literature/MickeyHaller, on what seems to be an open-and-shut case: Haller's client confessed to murdering a judge, and DNA from the client was found under the judge's fingernail. But Haller is convinced his client didn't do it and sure enough, Bosch discovers that the seemingly simple case is actually much more complicated. Ballard for her part is investigating the death of a homeless man who died when his tent caught on fire; it looks like the man kicked over a portable gas-powered heater, but Renee has doubts.

* BuddyCopShow: Harry Bosch the grizzled old ex-cop, and Renee Ballard the current LAPD cop less than half his age, working cases together.

* ShoutOut: John Jack Thompson is buried in the same cemetery that contains movie star Creator/TyronePower. Bosch remembers seeing Power in ''Film/{{Zorro|1940}}'' and ''Film/WitnessForTheProsecution''.
* StartsWithTheirFuneral: The book starts with John Jack Thompson's funeral. The murder book found in Thompson's office unravels a mystery, and also leads Harry to learn a lot he never knew about his old friend.