I have always considered the state of crime fiction in the US to be a three-headed monster of authors named Michael Connelly, George Pelecanos and Dennis Lehane.

Connelly is the top dog of late, and much of that has to do with the enormous popularity of Prime Video’s terrific series, “Bosch” and “Bosch: Legacy,” which are based on LAPD Detective Harry Bosch. With the release of his latest novel, THE WAITING, Connelly combines the efforts of the now-retired Bosch with Renée Ballard, head of the Open-Unsolved Unit. We also get to see Bosch’s daughter, Maddie, work her way onto Ballard’s team as a volunteer --- a move that will do wonders for her chances at becoming a detective like her father.

"THE WAITING is a delight from start to finish and another example of classic Connelly."

The novel opens with Ballard kicking off her day with an early morning surfing session, which she has grown to love from her days of being raised in Hawaii. All is normal until she returns to her automobile that had been covered from her view by the dunes. Someone found her magnetic box holding her car keys and used them to break into her vehicle, stealing her wallet and, even worse, her police badge. She already has been on thin ice with the LAPD, and the loss of her badge could be the excuse they need to bump her out of her leadership role with the Open-Unsolved Unit.

With the exception of Ballard, all the members of her Unit are volunteers, an experiment that the LAPD wanted to try out. The mix of retired police employees and civilians has been a success so far. However, she has always wanted another badge in the department to make them more productive, and that comes with the volunteering from Officer Maddie Bosch. Not only does Maddie join the Unit to help out, she wants to work on an infamous unsolved case --- the legendary Black Dahlia murder that shook up Hollywood half a century ago.

The team meets each morning to go over their whiteboard of cases. The most organized and eager member of the team is Colleen Hatteras, whose special skill is tracking genealogy, as well as other investigative online abilities. Ballard has her own private mission, which is to discover who stole her badge and how to manage its safe return. To do this, she reaches out to her old pal, Harry Bosch (who amusingly is watching an episode of “The Lincoln Lawyer”). Their collective search finds the original thief and the fence to whom he sold the badge. When the fence is confronted, he confesses to already moving the badge and points them in the direction of a man who is also interested in high-powered rifles.

While going undercover and getting trapped in the man's van, Ballard overhears him and another individual discuss shooting up the Malibu Pier in a mass slaughter they claim will put the shooting a few years ago in Las Vegas to shame. With Bosch’s help and a little input from the FBI, this quickly turns into a priority mission that Bosch must take the lead on in order to keep Ballard’s involvement anonymous. I literally was sweating as I read these tense scenes.

While all of this is going on, Maddie’s exploration into the Black Dahlia case may have gotten a huge bump when the DNA of a recently apprehended criminal matches the DNA found in a series of rapes and homicides that occurred during the days surrounding the Black Dahlia murder. The only trouble is that the father of the criminal they discovered is a well-respected judge. Ballard and company must move carefully in a case that her own captain and the local media want to shut down before it ever gets started. Their persistence will put the entire team at risk, and not everyone will make it through to the end of the book.

At one point, as Ballard is introducing Maddie to the team, Maddie asks what the biggest challenge is. I smiled when Ballard responded with a lyric from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: “The waiting is the hardest part.” Not only am I a huge Petty fan, I love that moment when the origin of a book’s title is revealed. THE WAITING is a delight from start to finish and another example of classic Connelly.