NIGHTSHADE (a Catalina novel book one)(audiobook) by Michael Connelly


Published by Little, Brown, and Company in 2025

Read by Will Damron.

Duration: 9 hours, 3 minutes.

Unabridged.

Synopsis

Michael Connelly takes a break from his Lincoln Lawyer series, his Harry Bosch series, and his Detective Ballard series to explore something new - Catalina Island.

Los Angeles County has jurisdiction over Catalina, a 75 square mile island a little more than 20 miles from mainland Los Angeles. Almost everyone takes the express ferry to Catalina, a boat ride that takes a little more than an hour. 

The separation means that Catalina is a very different place than Los Angeles. Cars are rare - almost everyone drives golf carts or walks. Less than 5,000 permanent residents live on the 75 square mile island and the pace of life is quite a bit slower.

It is widely believed that the Los Angeles Sheriff Department sends its screw up cops to Catalina for a little more seasoning or to find a safer place to make enough mistakes for the department to boot them out.

Nightshade features Detective Stilwell. He has been moved out to head up the substation on the island because he was not good at managing the intricacies of department politics. He made the wrong people mad. They couldn't really fire him, so they moved him to a place where he would be out of the way and might quit out of boredom and frustration with always being an hour long boat ride from Los Angeles.

Turns out Stillwell likes the pace of island life. He's good at managing the tourists that drink too much, he gets along well with the local government officials, and he has found a girlfriend. 

But, when a body shows up in the harbor near a private club designed for LA's old money families, Catalina shows that it can be just as dangerous as the rest of LA County...

My review

Connelly does a great job of quickly giving the reader the lay of the land on Catalina. I am from Indiana, so Catalina is just a place I had heard of - I knew it was on the ocean, but that was it.

Stillwell is a likeable guy who is just a bit too hard-headed for his own good, much like the other characters Connelly writes about. 

There are three mysteries in this book and Connelly weaves the investigations into one coherent story.

The only problem that I had is *****Spoiler alert***** at one point Stillwell gets suspended and he continues to investigate, including a sting operation that I would think would be invalidated because of the suspension. I am admit that almost all of my legal expertise comes from being an avid watcher of Law and Order, but suspended cops are supposed to suspend their duties as cops - that's why they call it a suspension. I would imagine any public defender could overturn that case in just a few minutes. Imagine what Connelly's Lincoln Lawyer would do.   *****End spoiler*****

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Nightshade by Michael Connelly.

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