Two Kinds of Truth (Harry Bosch, #20; Harry Bosch Universe, #31)

by Michael Connelly

Bosch felt a wave of grief. His daughter’s world was expanding. She was going places and it was the natural way of things. He loved seeing it and hated living it. She had only been a daily part of his life for a few years before it was time for her to go. Bosch regretted all the lost years before.

“Look, I’m sorry. But I wanted to catch these guys. What that kid did, the son, it was noble. When this all comes out, people will probably say he was stupid and naive and didn’t know what he was doing. But they won’t know the truth. He was being noble. And there isn’t a lot of that out there in the world anymore. People lie, the president lies, corporations lie and cheat.…The world is ugly and not many people are willing to stand up to it anymore. I didn’t want what this kid did to go by without…I didn’t want them to get away with it, I guess.”

Livingstone had said sympathy was no substitute for action. That was an essential brick in Bosch’s wall. He had built himself as a man of action and, at the moment when the integrity of his life’s work had been called into question by a man on death row, he had chosen to turn his sympathy for Elizabeth Clayton into action. He understood that but was unsure if anyone else would. They would see other motives. Elizabeth would as well, and that was why he had chosen not to see her.