McCaleb is asked to profile the killer of an unsolved murder. The victim was previously arrested for murder by Harry Bosch but released uncharged. McCaleb picks up a clue that makes Harry a suspect and now they must work together to clear Harry's name.
In 1993, Harry Bosch was assigned the case of a missing person, Marie Gesto. The young woman was never found - dead or alive - and the case has haunted Bosch ever since. Thirteen years later Bosch is in the Open-Unsolved Unit, where he still keeps the Gesto file on his desk, when he gets a call from the DA's office. A man accused of two heinous killings is willing to come clean in regard to several other murders in a deal to avoid the death penalty. One of those murders, he says, is the killing of Marie Gesto. In confirming the confession Bosch must get close to the man he has sought - and hated - for thirteen years. Bosch's whole being as a cop begins to crack when he comes to realise that he and his partner missed a clue back in 1993 which could have led them to Waits and would have stopped the nine murders that followed the killing of Marie Gesto...
Former FBI agent Rachel Walling is working a dead-end stint in South Dakota when she gets the call she's been dreading for four years. The Poet is back. And he has not forgotten Rachel. He has a special present for her. Harry Bosch is adjusting to life in Las Vegas as a private investigator and as a new father. He gets a call, too, from the widow of a friend who died recently. Previously in his FBI career, the friend worked on the famous case tracking the killer known as The Poet. This fact alone makes some of the elements of his death doubly suspicious. And Harry Bosch is heading straight into the path of the most ruthless and inventive murderer he has ever encountered...
Grace Lawson is living a happy, straightforward life in the suburbs with her husband, Jack, and two young children. But that security is about to come to a brutal end. For when Grace picks up a set of holiday snaps, amongst them is one shot that doesn't fit: a faded image of a life that Grace doesn't recognise and of her husband as she never knew him. Within twelve hours, Jack has disappeared, a brutal hitman is stalking her family and the safe world she knows has been turned upside down. And all Grace can see is that the past is coming back to haunt the present and people are getting hurt...
Near Mulholland Drive, Dr. Stanley Kent is found shot twice in the back of the head. It's the case LAPD detective Harry Bosch has been waiting for, his first since being recruited to the Homicide Special Squad. When he discovers that Kent had access to dangerous radioactive substances, what begins as a routine investigation becomes something darker, more deadly, and frighteningly urgent. Bosch is soon in conflict with not only his superiors but the FBI, which thinks the case is too important for just a cop. Complicating his job even more is the presence of Agent Rachel Walling, his onetime lover. Now guarding one slim advantage, Bosch relentlessly follows his own instincts, hoping they are still sharp enough to find the truth--and a killer who can annihilate an entire city.