THE LATE SHOW
Michael Connelly
Little, Brown
ISBN 978-0-316-22598-4
Hardcover
Thriller

THE LATE SHOW, as the cover hastens to tell us, introduces Detective Renee Ballard of the LAPD detective bureau. We meet Ballard, Michael Connelly’s newest character, right out of the box, within the first sentence of the book as she and her partner John Jenkins --- a twenty-five year LAPD veteran answer a call on the midnight to eight shift, nicknamed “the late show” by the cops who staff it. The call is a soft one --- a missing credit card --- but it enables Connelly to give his new character a soft opening before getting to the good stuff, which is to say, the bad stuff, as in a brutal assault on a prostitute and a mass murder in a popular nightclub.

It is the latter two cases that showcase Connelly’s first-rate chops at writing police procedurals, chops which never seem to get old or lose their luster. Connelly, as Ballard investigates the brutal assault on a hooker in L.A.’s twilight world, drops a bit of backstory about her here and there throughout the narrative. Ballard was on an upward trajectory in the LAPD until she accused her supervising lieutenant of sexual harassment. He of course denied the charge and her partner at the time (not Jenkins) refused to back her up. The end result is that Ballard got shunted to the late show, a less than glamorous shift on which the officers are de facto hunter-gatherers, passing off the cases they collect during the night to the day shift. Ballard manages to get and keep the assault case --- one which, for various reasons, could otherwise well get buried in the shuffle --- but finds herself attracted to the club killings, a no-no given that it is most definitely not her case. Ballard begins a pattern of quietly working the cases by day while working her regular late-show shift at night, much to the chagrin of all, including Jenkins, who worries that she’ll really step in it. The way in which Ballard attempts to balance her on and off hours also gives Connelly a chance to explore Ballard’s personal life as well as her past. Ballard was born in Hawaii but moved to Los Angeles with her father, who disappeared under a big wave while surfing with her. Ballard now lives with her dog and occasionally her grandmother, but she seems only a step or two up from homeless, a state which she seems to have acquired by choice rather than by circumstance as she lives on the beach and dogpaddles into the ocean with every chance she gets. One takes the sense that her relationships with those outside of her family are transitory at best, but she has mad skills for detective work which ultimately hold her in good stead as she works all three cases (don’t forget that stolen credit card) following wherever the evidence leads her, no matter how dangerous or surprising the result may be.


Ballard won’t make you forget Harry Bosch or Mickey Haller. I suspect, however, that forgetting those two worthy characters is not Connelly’s intent. He has created --- perhaps intentionally, perhaps coincidentally --- a geographical link among the three characters which will keep Connelly’s world bordered firmly by the Los Angeles megalopolis and suburban San Fernando, with Haller straddling both. I give mad props to Connelly for getting through the entirety of THE LATE SHOW without mentioning either of (current) his primary characters. He had to have been tempted, and would have been justified in doing so. Nonetheless, he persisted without them. The focus of THE LATE SHOW thus remains entirely on Ballard, for better and worse, and if THE LATE SHOW heralds the beginning of a new series --- there are just enough loose ends at the conclusion of THE LATE SHOW to lead into a sequel --- I don’t feel like I need it, but I certainly wouldn’t turn it down. More Connelly is good Connelly. Recommended.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
© Copyright 2017, The Book Report, Inc. All rights reserved.

I was anxious to read this one, as I am a huge fan of Connelly's Bosch series. The new protagonist, a female detective, has some issues that aren't fully explained, so it will be interesting to see how she progresses through the series. I enjoyed the book very much. Despite being different from his other series', it's just as well written and engrossing. There are several intersecting storylines that are nicely tied together. An excellent start to a new series.

It's nice to see a new story line for Connelly. Our patrons sure appreciate it.

Review: THE LATE SHOW by Michael Connelly (Renee Ballard #1)

Michael Connelly delivers a certain presence in every novel, a presence which pulls the reader straight into the story and makes us live it vicariously. THE LATE SHOW is the first mystery-police procedural in a new series, focused on Detective Renee Ballard of the Los Angeles Police Department. Ballard is a tough and gritty character, akin to a bulldog when she gets an intuitive scent on a case. She is also vulnerable, as a female in a career that still has a male-dominant mind set.

THE LATE SHOW deals with very up-to-date issues: transgenderness, club shootings, the presence of evil. It's a nonstop thrilling read.

I’ve long believed Connelly to be a master storyteller, he tells it straight and he keeps the lines clear. I don’t get confused when I read one of his books – I always know what’s happening. That’s not to say I necessarily know where it’s going, that’s a different story. In fact, he normally keeps me guessing, with hidden linkages, motives and agendas. His lead characters speak their mind, can be abrupt to the point of rudeness and take no crap from anybody. I love his books.

Here he introduces a new character, a female LAPD cop called Renée Ballard. The turf is the streets of Los Angeles Connelly readers will be well used to. And the motivation for drawing a new character is easily understood too: his classic crime stopper, Harry Bosch, is now now in his mid to late 60’s (if I’ve got my arithmetic right) and this is proving to be a limiting factor. Whereas you’d expect Bosch to be calming as the years catch up, Ballard is all steaming attitude and elbows. She’s got good reason to put all this to good use too, an incident with an ex-boss followed by betrayal from her partner has left he stranded on the night shift (AKA ‘the late show’). It’s a career graveyard.

We catch up with Ballard on what turns out to be anything but a routine night. After taking details of a credit card fraud she’s called to attend a scene where a transsexual woman has been virtually beaten to death. If that’s not enough, she ends her night assisting at a night club where 5 people have been shot to death. Strictly speaking, her job is to play a holding role on all cases, passing them over the the day shift to manage. Her current partner is ever keen to remind her of this – he’s a clock watcher, ever keen to escape his shift to attend his sick wife. The last thing he wants is to get dragged into something that’ll potentially extend his shift. But Ballard has other ideas.

There’s a lot going on but, as ever, Connelly holds a tight rein and never allows the narrative to get away from him. As the story progresses we learn more about Ballard (why do American cops always address each other by their surnames?) and she’s got an interesting back story. She has no significant man in her life – just a couple of guys she has semi-relationships with. Her surfing dad was drowned whilst doing the thing he loved and her mother seems to want nothing to do with Renée. In consequence, her main relationships are with her grandmother and her dog, Lola. Our lead lady is smart, work obsessed, driven, and forthright. Like a young Bosch? Yes, but different too. I really liked her.

Connelly has managed to make a new, fresh character seem like an old friend. I don’t quite know how he does it, but he does it. It’s a gripping story – or set of stories – and I defy any reader of crime fiction not to be drawn in heavily. He remains one of the best out there and in Ballard he’s opened up a whole new line of interest for his many fans and anyone who has yet to discover his books.

Go Renee! Connnelly has created a new winner in this book, introducing Renee Ballard, an out of favor detective who has been pushed into the Late Show by her vengeful boss. She is another quirky character, living in a truck, tough and alone.

Connelly gives us sufficient backstory so we will be prepared for many exciting books in the future. This is a brilliant debut in my favorite genre.

Renee stumbled upon several cases which she worked on with dogged tenacity, despite threats to her career and life. I was enthralled by her and the brilliance of her mind which navigates through problems, often in an unorthodox (or illegal) way.

Obviously, this will be another winning character for Connelly. Unlike other authors, Connelly allows his characters to age, grow and change. I am excited to know that Renee will provide another series to look forward to. Thanks Michael Connelly, for giving me slouch excitement and joy.

This book is an exciting start to what promises to be a great new series. Detective Renee Ballard is a formidable and tough detective working late shifts in LA. She is gutsy, brave and determined. We have different plots running through the book but they are all woven together very masterfully by Michael Connelly. I really love the character of Ballard and I am looking forward to reading more of her. Many thanks to Net Galley for my copy. I reviewed on Goodreads and Amazon.

Full review to be published online with the end of month review cycle.

THE LATE SHOW gives the reader Detective Renee Ballard; a tenacious, smart, loner - a Boschlike character but not a copy. She’s a Hawaii native and journalist who became a cop. She gets sidelined to the night shift aka the late show, after a sexual harassment compaint gets her jammed in the politics of the LAPD.

Several cases intertwine here. Then one night she gets called to a couple of cases that she just can't let go. The brutal beating of a prostitute and the death of a young woman caught up in a nightclub shooting. She then takes it upon herself to investigate these two cases herself - one with departmental blessing, the other off the books.

Things start to escalate and get personal for Renee as she suffers the loss of an old (albeit estranged) friend as well as facing her own danger. Can she manage to put her past behind her and muster all her strength to get to the bottom of what really happened that night?

THE LATE SHOW is the first book in Michael Connelly’s fascinating new “Renee Ballard” series. She’s a lot like Harry Bosch, but has enough of her own character to sell the book. Recommended for fans of the author’s work, and of strong female characters.

Michael Connelly's thirtieth novel is a bit of a curveball for long-time readers, but he absolutely smashes it out of the park. For the first time in many years, there's no Harry Bosch or Mickey Haller. Instead, a new hero, young detective Renee Ballard, a beach-loving Hawaiian who's been relegated to the midnight shift in Hollywood after speaking up against her former supervisor's sexual harassment.

Ballard was a star on the rise, but now she's persona non grata with many former colleagues in the prestigious Robbery Homicide division. Instead, she spends the early hours of the morning being called out to all manner of incidents, beginning investigations before passing them on to the daytime detectives. She's a shepherd of crime, more than a crime solver. But Ballard won't allow her current situation to push her out of the police force. She's determined to make a difference, to help victims.

Although she has a partner, the pair of detectives on 'the late show' (the nickname for the midnight shift) have to cover the entire week between them, so end up working some nights solo. Ballard's partner Jenkins is a solid detective, but is often now just punching the clock, eager to get home to spend time with his ailing wife. He doesn't share Ballard's burning drive to go the extra mile.

When on one night there's a credit card theft, a trans prostitute is brutally beaten and put in a coma and a bar worker is caught up in a nightclub multiple murder, Ballard finds it hard to let either of the latter two cases go. Despite the fact that her old nemesis, Lieutenant Olivas, takes over the nightclub investigation with his crack RHD team, and makes it very clear he needs no help from her.

Ballard is on the outside looking in, but won't let that stop her trying to find the truth.

Even if it puts her career, and her own life, on the line.

Connelly absolutely nails the tricky balance between familiarity and freshness with The Late Show. For long-time fans, Ballard has some Bosch-like characteristics (trouble with her superiors, extremely driven, solves crimes in LA) while being a fascinating, fully-formed character all of her own too.

It's easy to see why The Late Show is already being touted as the start of a new series, rather than a standalone. Renee Ballard is a wonderfully intriguing character, who gets more and more interesting as the book goes on, and we learn a little more about her. She is fierce, has a different way of looking at the world, and faces issues as a female detective that haven’t been addressed in other Connelly tales. I was curious as to how Connelly might handle writing from the perspective of a female detective, but he does it with aplomb and authenticity (I understand the character was inspired in part by a real-life LAPD female detective who Connelly has known for many years).

The Late Show starts well and gets even better as the pages turn, as we learn more about Ballard and her LA world, and are handcuffed by a sublimely wrought crime tale.

A brilliant start to a new series from a true master of the craft.

Grabbed a copy at BEA, and read it on a Saturday. As always, he knocks it out of the park with his gritty prose, and exciting plotting- dirty cops and a terrific new heroine as well. Happy to have another Renee novel soon, and telling everyone it's the beach read of the summer

A new book by Michael Connelly is always an event, as he is the doyen of the police procedural and no more so than when he introduces a new character, a dedicated young detective trying to prove herself in the LAPD when all the odds are stacked against her.

Renée Ballard works the night shift in Hollywood, a punishment given her after her harassment accusation against a senior officer was thrown out when the system rallied round and worked against her.

Here she works relentlessly to clear a number of serious crimes using skill, ingenuity and low cunning.

She is a worthy compatriot to Harry Bosch and she shares his maxim of "everyone counts" when it comes to helping victims of crime.

As always by this author the book is impeccably researched and accurate and it is a compelling and even at times, sensitive read.

The best thriller I have read this year.

Great new book from Michael Connelly. As a fan of Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch and Lincoln Lawyer series, I hope this is the start of a new series. The characters and pacing are perfect as is the heroine who straddles the gray area of the law to bring criminals to justice. A great read!

Renée Ballard is a veteran cop who made enemies when she reported her superior for sexual harassment and lost the case. She is now relegated to night duty, a shift known as "The Late Show." Ballard is partnered with John Jenkins, a decent detective who, for personal reasons, is not inclined to go above and beyond the call of duty ("he had been running on empty for a long time"). Renée, on the other hand, is a workaholic whose main focus is solving cases, even if they are not assigned to her. Her first order of business is tracking down the brute who viciously assaulted Ramón Gutierrez, a transgender prostitute. Renée also sticks her nose into an investigation that is receiving widespread media attention. Four men and one woman were gunned down in a nightclub; the shooter escaped. Renée surreptitiously gathers information and conducts her own inquiry into the crime. In her spare time, she paddleboards, visits her grandmother, and showers affection on her dog, Lola.

"The Late Show" has many of Connelly's trademark touches. There is a great deal of police jargon and rich California atmosphere (Renée relaxes by sitting on the beach and taking a spin on her paddle-board). The heroine's sleuthing involves paying close attention to forensic details; examining witness statements; conducting surveillance; and using her insight into how people think and behave to point her in the right direction. She is tough-minded and independent, sasses individuals who rub her the wrong way, and risks her life to insure that justice is done. Renée is single-minded in her determination to see matters through to the end, and has a Houdini-like ability to extricate herself from difficult situations.

This story is readable but breaks little new ground. Connelly's villains are vicious killers who are bent on eliminating anyone who gets in their way. Ballard is a one-person homicide squad. She uses her contacts, street smarts, and powers of persuasion to learn the truth and make the perpetrators pay for their crimes. Alas, "The Late Show" is too cut-and-dried and lacking in nuance to be ranked among Connelly's best works of fiction. Although Renée Ballard is undoubtedly tenacious and caring, she could use a bit more charm, humor, dimension, and charisma. These quibbles aside, "The Late Show" is action-packed and intriguing enough to please Connelly's legion of loyal fans.

As a fan of both Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch and Lincoln Lawyer series, I look forward to each new book by him. In this police procedural, Connelly introduces a new female character, Renee Ballard. Like Bosch, she has a history of issues with authority and as a result is assigned to the “Late Show”, or night shift. Usually officers on this shift do not have the opportunity to follow up on many of the crimes they are called to initially investigate. Ballard, though, also like Bosch, has an independent streak which drives her to pursue cases to their finish.

Set in the gritty underworld of LA, The Late Show is a compelling read; I didn’t want to put it down. A good writer, Connelly interweaves the various cases well; there is no confusion among the characters or action.

I’m not sure yet how I feel about this female character and some of the tactics she employs to achieve her goals, but I look forward to the next in this series to find out!

Here's a little bit of an oxymoron for you: Michael Connelly is one of my favorite authors, yet I haven't read one of his books in a while. I love the way he writes, but somewhere along the way I lost track of which Harry Bosch books I've read so far, so I've missed a bunch of them. I'll have to just suck it up and read from somewhere in the middle, because he sure knows how to tell a story.

The good news is, with The Late Show, he's introduced a brand new character to get hooked on, LAPD Detective Renée Ballard. She has her issues (and I look forward to Connelly spending more time exploring them in future books) but she's definitely not as dark and cynical as Bosch is (not that there's anything wrong with that). And with this new book, once again, Connelly proves he's a master at weaving suspense, emotion, character development, and some good-old-fashioned police work.

Ballard works the night shift in Hollywood, known as the late show. She and her partner are often the first to respond to different incidents throughout the night and early morning—robberies, assaults, the occasional homicide—but they usually don't see them through to fruition, because they're kicked to the day squad. This frustrates Ballard, who once had a promising path as a detective, only to be shuffled to the late show after filing a sexual harassment complaint against a supervisor.

She loves the job, but it frustrates her, because she has so much more potential than taking initial statements and then leaving them to someone else to solve. And she knows that she could solve at least some of the cases, probably more so than those who take them on, but overtime isn't allowed, and she just needs to learn how to play the game.

But one night gives her a little more than she bargains for. First, she and her partner are called to the scene of a transgender prostitute who was brutally beaten and left for dead. The amount of violence perpetrated on this individual amazes Ballard, and she is reluctant to let the case go, because she wants to find who could do such a thing. While at the hospital, they're called to watch over a young waitress shot in what appears to be a multiple homicide case at a nightclub. When the woman dies from her injuries, Ballard wants to understand if she was intended to be a victim or if she was just collateral damage.

Both cases give her more than she bargained for. And as much digging as she wants to do on the nightclub shooting, the lead detective on the case is her former supervisor who had her demoted to the late show, and her former partner, who refused to back her up in her claims, is involved. The more she gets involved trying to track down the perpetrator in the assault case, and the more she tries to find dirt in the shooting, the more she finds the cases are intertwined, and bring her own demons to light at the same time.

"To me it's like the laws of physics—for every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction. If you go into darkness, the darkness goes into you. You then have to decide what to do with it. How to keep yourself safe from it. How to keep it from hollowing you out."

Renée Ballard is a brilliantly drawn character. I love her determination, her hard-headedness, her vulnerability, her strong (if occasionally misplaced) sense of right and wrong, and the way she takes her job seriously. She is definitely flawed, and you can see the potential for those flaws to cause her danger. But she is a truly fascinating character, and in Connelly's hands, she so transpires the stereotypical qualities you often see in fictional female detectives.

Once again, Connelly does a terrific job balancing the narrative of the story with its suspense and action. There are a few twists and turns along the way, and I was hooked from the start. Reading The Late Show reminded me why Connelly is one of the greatest crime writers around, and it makes me want to kick myself that I've let so much time slip by since I've last read one of his Bosch books.

Ballard isn't portrayed as a superwoman, but she's a super woman, and one I can't wait to see in another book sometime soon. This is a fantastic start to a new series I hope has the staying power of Bosch's.

NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

Renee Ballard is a detective working the "late show" 11-7 am shift in Hollywood, CA. Standard procedure for her shift is to work the case and hand it over to the applicable department in the morning, but Renee has caught three cases that she doesn't want to let go. It was a good story, somewhat predictable, of a strong woman fighting to maintain her job and reputation in the male-dominated police force. Although I did finish the book, in the end I really didn't care enough about the characters for it to become my staff pick or one that I would whole-heartedly recommend.

I'm pretty confident that this is my first Michael Connelly book; I was worried that the writing would turn out to be overhyped (see my opinions but James Patterson, Debbie Macomber, etc.). I found I enjoyed this quite a bit. Although I was a little surprised to see the main character so blazé about sneaking around the law, she seemed a real enough character. I've certainly read a few male-authored books featuring completely unlifelike female lead characters (*cough*Robert J. Sawyer*cough*) but there wasn't anything jarringly inaccurate here. The most distracting thing was that the story used a lot of acronyms and specialist terminology that, not being a huge reader of police procedurals, I wasn't at all familiar with.

The story wrapped up pretty well-- although I was expecting more cleanup on a few issues, I guess they'll be covered in the sequel. There isn't any great need to read beyond this installment: it's mainly interpersonal character issues that will carry the story through, and each book will have separate crime stories.

"If you go into the darkness, the darkness goes into you. You then have to decide what to do with it. How to keep yourself safe from it. How to keep it from hollowing you out."

Detective Renée Ballard works the "late show" (11 pm to 7 am shift) with the Los Angeles Police Department. Unlike most cops, she doesn't have the luxury of following a case to its conclusion as she is meant to pass it off to those in the appropriate departments that come on in the morning. The assignment is "usually awarded to those who run afoul of the politics and bureaucracy of the department." Ballard earned the assignment after she filed and lost a sexual harassment suit against Lieutenant Robert Olivas, the head of a homicide team 4 years prior.

This gritty police procedural focuses on 3 separate cases that come in on a single night of duty. The first concerns and elderly lady who believes her credit card was stolen when she gets an alert that it was used to make online purchases on Amazon. The second involves the vicious beating of a male prostitute who is transitioning to female on the Santa Monica stroll. And the big one -- a multiple murder in a nightclub -- 5 persons shot dead and the shooter escaped. Ballard and her partner Jenkins write up the files and then Ballard can't let go and pursues them on her own time, against policy.

Filled with police jargon and detailed investigative description, this was absorbing and addictive. Renée Ballard is not a typical female detective given her backstory and the way she lives. Not particularly good with relationships, she is sort of a lone she-wolf and definitely hard boiled. I love Connelly's writing style and have read most of his previous series, and this is apparently the start of one featuring a female protagonist. I'm hooked and definitely will be eagerly waiting for the next book. The writing is crisp and the complex plot is believable though it of course contains the inevitable, stereotypical dramatic sequence where the female is taken captive (my only beef).

Michael Connelly has done it again. As appealing a character as Harry Bosch; as memorable a character as Mickey Haller, Renee Barnard joins the pantheon of amazing souls Connelly conjures for our reading pleasure. Damaged by gender inequities and police politics, gifted and tenacious, Barnard confronts big evil, as she calls it, in this debut novel featuring a layered, nuanced woman who happens to be an LA Police detective, a surfer, a granddaughter and a dog parent. Any one of those “extra” tells in her character development might make her interesting to read about, put them all together and she is unforgettable, mesmerizing and Connelly’s readers old and new are going to want to know her better and watch her grow. I hope Mr. Connelly already has a second Barnard book ready to go, because I can’t wait to see what she is going to do next!

His body of work demonstrates that Michael Connelly can tell a good story and The Late Show is no exception. The first in a new series featuring LAPD detective Renee Ballard is filled with tension, action, and a believable plot, although I don't know if those who serve in our various police departments would agree totally. Although I gave the book 5 stars, I didn't find Ballard to be a very likable character. Yes, she's gutsy but her actions put her and her career at risk too often to be completely believable. "You're the one who always has to win. To show the guys up," a male colleague tells her. And that is demonstrated time and agin. Further to my not really empathizing with her character, her treatment of Tutu, her grandmother, seems much too distant for the relationship we're to believe they have. Connelly tries to make us sympathetic to Ballard's situation - assignment to the overnight shift because she complained about her supervisor's attempt to sexually harass her. But, her complaints seemed naive, at least to this female reader. I just can't believe that in today's environment, and especially in a male-dominated workplace, HR professionals, ombudspeople, and others in the management chain would have let this retributive assignment stand. It does not ring true. But, that's a relatively minor quibble in what is an otherwise excellent book.