History Literature / LostLight

* CuffsOffRubWrists: Bosch, who is the one rubbing his wrists, comments disapprovingly about how he always thought cuffing a suspect too tightly was a cheap tactic.

Having retired from the LAPD at the end of ''[[Literature/CityOfBones2002 City of Bones]]'', Harry Bosch is at loose ends. Still feeling the 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 two million dollars 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.

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, investigation came to a halt when an armed robbery at a bar leaves 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.

* AlliterativeList: The case Harry Bosch is investigating is said to have "everything [=RHD=] likes in a case: movies, money and murder".

* AndThisIsFor: Villainous example when Simonson has Bosch at gunpoint.

** Roy Lindell, who previously appeared in ''Literature/TrunkMusic'' and ''Literature/AngelsFlight'', shows up again as well.
* ChekhovsGun: Harry's random observation about how cop cars have oversized gas tanks. This is why Marty Gessler's credit card was charged for 29.1 gallons the night she was murdered.
** Perfectly played with the water bottle Harry loses over the side of his deck. A completely throw-away minor incident that comes back at the climax to save Harry's life.

* DirtyCop: The crippled LAPD cop who helps Bosch is actually the murderer.
* EvilCripple: It turns out that the murderer is the (now) quadriplegic cop.
* ExactWords: To avoid telling the bad guys he's working for himself, Harry 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."

* 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.

** 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." The novel ends with Eleanor revealing to Harry the existence of his daughter Madeline.

* 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.

* GrayRainOfDepression: It starts raining just as Bosch and Roy Lindell discover the three-years-buried body of Martha Gessler.

* ItAlwaysRainsAtFunerals: Inverted. It's raining when Bosch emerges from the cave [[spoiler: after finding and uncovering Gessler's body]].

* SarcasmMode: Toward the end, Bosch thinks to himself of Gessler's fate, "what a wonderful world." Doubles as an IronicEcho.

* ThereAreNoCoincidences: Bosch admits that sure, sometimes there are coincidences, but he refuses to believe that Linus Simonson buying the bar that Dorsey and Cross got shot up in is a coincidence.

* TheBusCameBack: LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters, after all, in the Connelly universe. 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.

* ItAlwaysRainsAtFunerals: Inverted. It's raining when Bosch and Lindell emerge from the cave [[spoiler: after finding and uncovering Gessler's body]].