A Few Clues to Bosch’s Comeback

In an effort to avoid stumbling across plot spoilers, I tried not to read anything about the future of Titus Welliver’s Bosch until I’d watched the seventh and concluding season of that TV series, released by Amazon Prime in late June. But having now seen those final eight episodes (and what a treat that experience was!), I hopped forthwith on this piece in the British blog Crime Fiction Lover. It offers at least some details of the still-unnamed sequel already in the works for Amazon’s ad-supported streaming service, IMDb.TV:

After handing in his badge at the LAPD [Los Angeles Police Department], Harry is going it alone as a private investigator in a 10-part series that’s based on The Wrong Side of Goodbye—which just so happens to be a favourite book of Michael Connelly’s and which earned five stars in our review.

He told Newsweek that the show will find inspiration in the pages of the 29th Bosch novel, which was published in 2016.

“It might be my favorite book because I finally get to the thing that inspired me to be a writer and that was the private eye novels of people like Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald and Dashiell Hammett,” said Connelly.

For those who haven’t read The Wrong Side of Goodbye (and really, it’s difficult to keep up with Connelly’s output, while also enjoying diverse other authors), what did that story entail? Here’s a chunk of Ryan Steck’s review of Wrong Side in The Real Book Spy:

After being forced to retire from the LAPD where he spent more than three decades as one of the department’s most accomplished detectives, Harry Bosch has found a way to hold onto his badge and gun a little while longer.

The city of San Fernando has a small police force with no budget to expand, so Bosch struck a deal to come on board as a reserve detective working part-time. While he enjoys working with the SFPD, it’s not a paid position. It allows him to keep his foot in the door, solving crimes and using his expertise to put bad guys away, but it doesn’t pay the bills.

To earn a paycheck, Bosch hires out his detective skills as a private investigator. He doesn’t advertise or have an office, and he relies solely on word of mouth from past clients to find new ones. But when a detective with Bosch’s pedigree makes his skill set available, word travels fast. Including to the rich and famous.

Whitney Vance, a reclusive, old billionaire who values discretion, offers Bosch ten thousand dollars to meet with him in secret. It’s immediately apparent to Bosch that Mr. Vance’s living conditions, while extravagant, allow him very little privacy. The billionaire reveals that he has no known next of kin and that he wants to hire Bosch to find out if a past lover might have borne him a child. With his health failing, Vance decides he would much prefer to leave everything he has to his child, even if he’s never met them, rather than to the board of his company.

Apparently, a woman Vance had a relationship with more than sixty years ago had become pregnant. Last he knew, the woman, who might have been an illegal immigrant, was headed to Mexico to have an abortion. The billionaire never saw her again and wants Bosch to track her down and find out if she did, indeed, have an abortion, or if the child was actually born.

Joining Welliver on this new program will be Mimi Rogers, once more in the role of civil-rights attorney—and not-infrequent Bosch antagonist—Honey “Money” Chandler, and Madison Lintz returning as Harry’s daughter, Maddie. Welliver explained in a recent radio interview that other players familiar from Bosch will make less regular appearances in the sequel. “It’s a continuing part of the telling of the Bosch universe,” he said, “and I’m sure we’ll pepper that universe periodically with cameos from the characters from the original show.”

Although no premiere date for this continuation series has been announced, Connelly told Newsweek that it shouldn’t be too far down the road. “IMDb will be ad supported so we won’t drop all ten [episodes] at once,” said the author. “I don’t know when but I think it will be sooner. We’ll try and capitalize on the wave of Season 7. A lot of that stuff is above my pay grade and still not decided.”

READ MORE: “Titus Welliver on Bosch’s Last Chapter—and Harry Bosch’s Next One,” by Dan Reilly (Vulture).