The Dark Hours (Renée Ballard, #4; Harry Bosch, #23; Harry Bosch Universe, #36)

by Michael Connelly

The move to defund was turned away by the city’s politicians, but the police department had burned through its budget in dealing with the protests that followed the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis. After weeks of tactical alert and associated costs, the department was out of money and the result was freezes on hiring, the disbanding of units, and the end of several programs. In effect, the department had been defunded in several key areas.

This reads really badly, to be honest, until you get to the meat of the book, which is driven by civil servants effectively refusing to do their jobs out of what amounts to brattiness.