Line #12 Literature/LostLight


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lost_light.png]]
2	''Lost Light'' is a 2003 detective novel by Creator/MichaelConnelly, featuring Literature/HarryBosch.
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4	Having retired from the LAPD at the end of ''[[Literature/CityOfBones2002 City of Bones]]'', Harry Bosch is at loose ends. Still feeling the [[ChronicHeroSyndrome need to catch bad guys]] rather than pursue any of the more lucrative ways homicide cops might capitalize on their skills, Harry elects to pursue an old case. Four years prior, Harry was called out to investigate the murder of Angella Benton, a PA at a movie production company. At the time it was thought to be a routine sex murder, but Harry thought different. He was apparently proved right four days later when $2 million in cash, which were being used as a movie prop, were stolen from the set of a film being shot by Angella Benton's production company.
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6	Unfortunately for Harry, the expansion of his case led to it being reassigned to the elite Robbery-Homicide Division. Unfortunately for the case, RHD detectives Jack Dorsey and Lawton Cross got nothing. Unfortunately for both the case and for Dorsey and Cross, the investigation came to a halt when an armed robbery at a bar left Dorsey dead and Cross a quadriplegic. Now after four years, private investigator Harry Bosch is out to solve the Angella Benton murder once and for all.
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8	----
9	!!This novel contains examples of:
10	* AlliterativeList: The case Bosch is investigating is said to have "everything [=RHD=] likes in a case: movies, money and murder".
11	* AlliterativeName: Burnett Biggar, Miles Manley and Bernard Banks.
12	* AndThisIsFor: Villainous example when [[spoiler:Simonson]] has Bosch at gunpoint.
13	* ArcWords: This book introduces "relentless" and "high jingo" into the mix, and Harry's "single-bullet theory" is discussed.
14	* BluffTheEavesdropper: Bosch and Langwiser speak in code while talking on his home phone, and wind up getting some very good results.
15	* TheBusCameBack: This one features the return of Eleanor Wish, Bosch's lover from ''Literature/TheBlackEcho'', whom he later married in ''Literature/TrunkMusic'' only for her to leave him in ''Literature/AngelsFlight''. She has a secret.
16	** Roy Lindell, who previously appeared in ''Trunk Music'' and ''Angels Flight'', shows up again as well.
17	* ChekhovsGun: Harry's random observation about how cop cars have oversized gas tanks. [[spoiler:This is why Marty Gessler's credit card was charged for 29.1 gallons the night she was murdered.]]
18	** Perfectly played with the water bottle Harry loses over the side of his deck. [[spoiler:A completely throw-away minor incident that comes back at the climax to save Harry's life.]]
19	* ContinuityNod:
20	** The events of Connelly's non-Bosch novel ''Literature/VoidMoon'' were made into a movie--or rather, they would have been made into a movie if a bloody armed robbery hadn't led to production being cancelled.
21	** This book has just one of many references to fictional Archway Studios, which first popped up in Connelly novel ''Literature/TrunkMusic''.
22	** Bosch mentions when trying to get Lawton Cross to relax to remember something that it had been "years since he had tried any hypnotic techniques."
23	** Bosch recalls the HeWhoFightsMonsters lecture that Honey Chandler gave him in ''Literature/TheConcreteBlonde''.
24	** Janis Langweiser, the hard-charging prosecutor from ''Literature/AngelsFlight'', is now a defense attorney. Harry, who needs a lawyer he can trust (and who hasn't made the acquaintance of Literature/MickeyHaller yet), goes to Janis to help protect him from the FBI.
25	* DirtyCop: [[spoiler:The crippled LAPD cop who helps Bosch is actually the murderer.]]
26	* EvilCripple: [[spoiler:It turns out that the murderer is the (now) quadriplegic cop.]]
27	* ExactWords: To avoid telling the bad guys he's working for himself, Bosch says he's "working for somebody who isn't going to stop, who isn't going to let up. Not for a minute. He's going to find out who put Angella Benton down on the tile and he'll go at it until he either dies or he knows."
28	** Invoked by Harry when Special Agent Peoples asks for the original surveillance recordings in exchange for the murder files. Bosch replies that he only promised to not release them, he never said that he would give them away.
29	* FBIAgent: Harry Bosch has run afoul of the FBI many times, but in this one he's actually arrested by the feds when his investigation into the Angella Benton murder starts leading into a terrorism angle. He also has to deal with a rogue, thuggish FBI agent named Milton who threatens Bosch and assaults Cross.
30	* FiveSecondForeshadowing: Harry notices a safety fence around Eleanor's pool, the kind "people with children put up as a precaution."
31	* {{Foreshadowing}}:
32	** A criminal defense attorney tries to hire the unemployed Harry Bosch as a private investigator and Bosch refuses because he doesn't feel comfortable with the idea. In ''Literature/{{The Crossing\|2015}}'', he'll investigate a murder on behalf of the accused's lawyer.
33	** The several hints Bosch picks up on that Eleanor Wish is living with someone else are matched up with Eleanor's comment that Vegas is "not a bad place to raise a kid. Supposedly." [[spoiler:The novel ends with Eleanor revealing to Harry the existence of his daughter Madeline.]]
34	* FullNameUltimatum: "Hieronymus Bosch" is called that as a threat.
35	* FunWithAcronyms: [=REACT=]. The agent who explains it to Bosch has some trouble remembering what it means. "Regional Response... no, it's Rapid Enforcement Against something Terrorism, I forget the whole thing -- oh, I got it, Rapid Response Enforcement And Counter-Terrorism. That's it." [=REACT=] is described as a [=BAM=] squad -- By Any Means.
36	* GoodIsNotNice: Roy Lindell is very much on Harry's side, but damn, he's an ass.
37	* GrayRainOfDepression: It starts raining just as Bosch and Lindell discover the three-years-buried body of Martha Gessler.
38	* GunStruggle: Bosch opens his eyes after the Gun Struggle and finds that his opponent doesn't have a face.
39	* HeWhoFightsMonsters: Discussed when Bosch is sparring with an FBI agent, after the FBI chucked him into a special detention center.
40	** Brought to fruition in Bosch's final meeting with Lawton Cross, when he briefly considers harming him.
41	* IMadeCopies: Bosch leaves the incriminating video of Milton and Cross with Janis Langweiser, and tells the FBI that to make sure they don't try and chuck him in a cell again.
42	* ItAlwaysRainsAtFunerals: Inverted. It's raining when Bosch emerges from the cave [[spoiler:after finding and uncovering Gessler's body]].
43	* ItOnlyWorksOnce: Early on, Bosch meets with FBI agent Roy Lindell, with whom he actually has a good relationship from prior cases. Lindell wants to help Bosch but is hampered by his position with the Bureau, [[SteppingOutForAQuickCupOfCoffee so he “accidentally” leaves Bosch alone with the FBI case file in an interview room]], with the express intent that Bosch not only reads the file but takes it with him when he leaves. Later, he tries to set up the same trick with an insurance investigator, but while the investigator goes to get his coffee, his secretary walks in and finds Bosch reading the file.
44	-->'''Investigator''': Well, I hope you got whatever you needed, because now to make good on the little fit I had out there, I have to throw you out.
45	* ManlyTears: At the end, Bosch leaves Lindell quietly crying to himself.
46	* MeaningfulName: Burnett Biggar and his son Andre are tall enough to deserve their surname.
47	* MythologyGag: Angella Benton worked for Eidolon Productions, and the name is said to mean "phantom" and refer to an Creator/EdgarAllanPoe poem. In ''Literature/ThePoet'' the titular SerialKiller has a thing for Poe and calls himself the Eidolon.
48	* {{Narrator}}: There are a couple dozen Connelly novels featuring Harry Bosch, but this one and ''Literature/TheNarrows'' are the only ones where Harry narrates the story. All the others are third-person with Harry as a POV character.
49	** In both novels, Harry is a PrivateDetective instead of being an LAPD homicide cop. The first-person narration is a nod to the traditional way HardboiledDetective stories are told.
50	* NoNameGiven: The chief of police. He's tall and imposing unlike his predecessor who was a fat man, but both chiefs of police go unnamed in the Harry Bosch universe.
51	* PantsPositiveSafety
52	* PrimaDonnaDirector: The director of the ''Void Moon'' movie is a prima donna who insists on having $2 million in real money to use as a prop, despite the fact that most movies don't use real cash and the full $2 million won't ever get in the shot anyway. This insistence on verisimilitude naturally facilitates an armed robbery on the movie set.
53	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Lindell calling Bosch out on his CowboyCop ways:
54	--> ''He's always been a private investigator, even when he wore a badge.''
55	* SarcasmMode: Toward the end, Bosch thinks to himself of [[spoiler:Gessler]]'s fate, "What a wonderful world." Doubles as an IronicEcho.
56	* ShotInTheAss: In the backstory. One of the bank people at the heist is shot in the butt. Not played for laughs.
57	* ShoutOut: When Cross challenges one of the FBI thugs at his house for ID, the FBI thug shoots back with the "We don't need no ''steenking'' badges" line from ''Film/TheTreasureOfTheSierraMadre''.
58	** Harry later meets FBI agent Peoples in the same restaurant where Pacino and De Niro met in ''{{Film/Heat}}'', which Harry himself points out.
59	* SteppingOutForAQuickCupOfCoffee: Roy Lindell is not allowed to share the Martha Gessler file with Bosch. So Lindell makes a big show out of leaving the file on his desk while going outside to grab a smoke, so Bosch can look at it. The reason Lindell does this is that Marty Gessler was his girlfriend and he wants Harry to solve the case.
60	** Bosch tries to set up this same trick again later when he meets with an insurance investigator who was trying to track down the stolen money. [[ItOnlyWorksOnce The investigator’s secretary walks in while Bosch is reading the file]], and the investigator has to make a show of kicking Bosch out of the office as a result.
61	* ThereAreNoCoincidences: Bosch admits that sure, sometimes there are coincidences, but he refuses to believe that [[spoiler:Linus Simonson buying the bar that Dorsey and Cross got shot up in]] is a coincidence.
62	* ThisIsSomethingHesGotToDoHimself: Implied when Lindell pushes Bosch aside in the cave and finishes [[spoiler: uncovering Gessler's body]] by himself.
63	* TitleDrop: By Bosch, as he and Lindell explore the cave [[spoiler: where Gessler is buried]].
64	* WallSlump: One of the bad guys does this after getting shot.

Context Literature / LostLight