Nightshade

Michael Connelly

MEET Detective Sergeant Stilwell... he’s a homicide cop whose departmental politicking got him chucked out of his job with Los Angeles County Sheriff office and ‘exiled’ to the holiday island of Catalina twenty-two miles from the mainland.

His ‘punishment’ move should have seen him dealing only with petty thefts and cases of drunk-and-disorderly but when a woman’s body is found weighted down under a yacht in the harbour, the recalcitrant murder detective just can’t help overstepping his permitted line of enquiry.

Welcome to the crime-hunting life of the man known to friends and colleagues as Stil... the brand new detective hero of an unforgettable police world created by superstar American writer Michael Connelly (pictured below), author of a raft of bestselling novels which include the Harry Bosch series, the Lincoln Lawyer series, and the Renée Ballard series. With enticing hints that Stilwell may well, in future, connect with much-loved characters from Connelly’s other LAPD series, this opener is a blast from start to finish as our doggedly determined and unrepentant cop makes his mark on both the sunshine island and its fiercely entrenched residents.

Detective Stilwell is only too aware that his low-key post policing Catalina Island was payback for a department clash which saw him taken off the homicide desk on the mainland and sent away to a backwater outfit which has little in the way of serious crime.

But Stilwell has been on the island for a year now, is commanding officer of the small police department, has a rewarding relationship with assistant harbourmaster Tash Dano, and against all odds, has found that ‘sometimes the place you don’t want to be turns out to be the place you should be.’ However, what he didn’t expect was to get a report of a body found weighed down by an anchor chain at the bottom of the harbour just as a busy summer holiday weekend is set to start. As a former body-recovery diver, Stilwell discovers that the victim is a woman identifiable at first only by a streak of purple dye in her hair.

At the same time, there is a report that a buffalo has been beheaded on a protected reserve... a case that becomes fraught with violence and danger when Stilwell digs into the shady past of one of the island’s big names. Under instructions from his LAPD boss to ‘play nice’ with two former colleagues who have arrived from the mainland to investigate the murder, Stilwell still crosses all lines of protocol and jurisdiction and works both cases even though he was told not to.

Hampered by one of his ex-colleagues determined to thwart him at every turn, Stilwell is convinced he is the only one who can bring justice to the woman known as Nightshade. Soon, his investigation uncovers closely guarded secrets and a dark heart to the serene island that was meant to be his escape from the evils of the big city.

Nightshade proves to be classic Connelly...  packed with fast-paced thrills and spills, Stilwell’s first outing features a gripping murder mystery and a compulsive investigation that digs deep into not just the island’s dark undercurrents but the shadows that loom large from the fiercely independent Stilwell’s chequered past, forcing him to confront uncomfortable truths.

As always, we meet a brilliantly drawn cast of characters from all walks of life, including Stilwell’s former Los Angeles colleagues, resentful locals, and the new love in his life, Tash. But the real-life island of Catalina – a popular tourist destination which can be reached by ferry services from the mainland – also plays a leading role, adding atmosphere, colour and vitality to Connelly’s immaculately plotted crime thriller.

With a romance simmering nicely against the bejewelled island idyll, a liberal sprinkling of Connelly’s dark brand of humour, a murder mystery mired in crime and corruption, and a principled detective ready to leave no stone unturned, this is a rip-roaring start for a terrific new series.
(Orion, hardback, £22)