The Wrong Side of Goodbye (Harry Bosch, #19; Harry Bosch Universe, #29)

by Michael Connelly

Bosch loved any opportunity to see his city from up high. When he was a young detective he would often take extra shifts as a spotter in one of the Department’s airships—just to take a ride above Los Angeles and be reminded of its seemingly infinite vastness.

He also noted the number of helipads on the tops of the buildings below him. The helicopter had become the commuter vessel of the elite. He had heard that even some of the higher-contract basketball players on the Lakers and Clippers took helos to work at the Staples Center.

She finished the story in a matter-of-fact tone. It was almost fifty years old and she had probably told it and thought about it ten thousand times. It was family history now and the emotion had gone out of it.

Politicians could talk about building walls and changing laws to keep people out, but in the end they were just symbols. Neither would stop the tide any more than the rock jetties at the mouth of the port did. Nothing could stop the tide of hope and desire.