Angels Flight (Harry Bosch, #6; Harry Bosch Universe, #8)

by Michael Connelly

the pure definition of freeway therapy, the brass’s method of unofficially punishing malcontents and problem cops.

Bosch knew Irving’s desire that the department have only one face and one race—blue—would go out the window when he needed a black face for the cameras.

With cops the word motherfucker was rarely used. It was heard a lot by them but not used. With most cops it was reserved as being the worst thing you could say about someone. When it was said it meant one thing: that the person had crossed the righteous, that the person had no respect for the keepers of the law and therefore

the rules and bounds of society. Cop killers were always motherfuckers, no questions asked. Defense lawyers got the call, most of the time. And Howard Elias was on the motherfucker list, too. Right at the top.

When they had married a year ago, he had found a feeling of

contentment and peace that he had never experienced before.

Without hesitation and before the prosecutor could object to the irrelevant question, Kincaid said he would never place a business in an

area where the inhabitants had a propensity to riot. He said he made the decision after the Watts riots of 1965 and it was confirmed after the more recent riots of 1992.

“You break my heart, Eleanor. I always hoped that I could make you feel alive again.” Eleanor closed her eyes. She looked as though she might cry. “I’m so sorry, Harry,” she whispered. “I should never have said that.”

He had lived alone most of his life. He was used to places that were empty. He knew the real shelter of a home was inside yourself.

He knew that you didn’t win justice by carrying a sign or a cardboard coffin. You

earned it by being on the side of the righteous, by being

unswayed from that path. And he knew that true justice was blind to all colors except...

For he had been strangely at peace. In that moment he had found an essential truth.

He knew somehow that he would be spared, that the righteous man was beyond the grasp of the fallen.

He thought about Chastain and his final scream, a wail so loud and horrible a...

It was the sound of fallen angels in their ...