Ironwood / Michael Connelly.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Sworn to protect a scenic island meant to be far from the evils of the mainland, Detective Sergeant Stilwell can feel danger closing in.

Detective Sergeant Stilwell knows that his posting on Catalina Island is no paradise, but to most residents, it seems blissfully separated--by twenty-two miles of ocean--from the troubles of Los Angeles County. But now a threat is coming to his safe haven.

Acting on a tip from a confidential informant, Stilwell and his deputies watch a plane land in the middle of the night at the Airport in the Sky, a remote airstrip in the mountains. A duffel bag of drugs is dropped and the deputies move in, but things quickly go sideways. While Stilwell chases the fleeing pickup man into the mountainside brush, shots are fired on the runway and the plane flies off.

An internal inquiry follows, putting Stilwell on the bench until he is cleared of responsibility for the disastrous operation. But he is determined to find out who brought deadly violence to his island, and begins his own secret investigation into the drug deal gone wrong.

While under orders to remain in the sheriff's substation, he finds in the lost and found a valuable backpack that was never claimed. He traces it to a woman who disappeared while hiking on the island four years ago. But then why was the pack only turned in two months back? Now thoroughly intrigued, he follows the mystery all the way to the LAPD's Open-Unsolved Unit and Detective Renée Ballard.

Stilwell and Ballard work the case from both sides of the channel, and soon realize they are on the trail of a criminal who revels in taunting the authorities. Meanwhile, frustrated at being shut out of an investigation on his own island, Stilwell risks his already shaky standing in the department to pursue a case whose reach is wider than he ever imagined.

Page-turning, packed with intrigue, and bringing together an unstoppable investigative team, Ironwood continues the Catalina series with all of Michael Connelly's signature "relentless narrative drive...evocative atmosphere, realistic dialogue, and well-developed characters" ( Washington Review of Books ).

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Booklist Review

ldquo;Small island, big crime," says Detective Sergeant Stilwell about his turf on Catalina, just a short ferry ride from L.A. All the characters and dynamics introduced in Connelly's first Catalina novel, Nightshade (2025), are in full swing here as a cluster of crimes erupts, and Stilwell persists in disobeying orders to follow his hunches. A new deputy is killed and another badly injured when a drug-deal stakeout goes catastrophically wrong. Barred from investigating and told to clean up the station's overflowing lost and found, Stilwell gets curious about an abandoned backpack and finds himself involved with a cold case overseen by LAPD Detective Renée Ballard, a character from one of Connelly's previous series. Stilwell's tenacity, keen instincts, dread, tenderheartedness, and pragmatism--he knows just how to deal with a scheming vintner and a kid who graffitied the island's landmarks--make for an entertaining and admirable hero, while Catalina, with its colorful history, "fragile ecosystems," and busy harbor, overseen by Tash, Stilwell's lover, is an evermore intriguing setting. Connelly is at his most polished and incisive here, with crackling dialogue, complex investigations, tricky relationships, escalating suspense, and dogged and inspired sleuthing by a principled, rule-breaking hero. The satisfying ending promises more enthralling episodes on the horizon.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Connelly fans will be avidly seeking the second in his Catalina series.

Kirkus Book Review

More crimes of every shape and size bedevil the paradise of Santa Catalina Island, off the coast of southern California. Police substation director Sgt. Stilwell, who really doesn't want you to know his first name, is leading the interception of an aircraft that's just landed when everything goes sideways, ending Dep. Ilsa Ramirez's career and Dep. Alton Quigley's life. After the book opens with such a bang, Stilwell settles into his customary routine, now tinged by grief. He identifies cartel courier Gonzalo Kalas as the man who fled the plane during its brief stint on the ground, then hears that Kalas has eluded police custody. Stilwell finds a keychain in a backpack Kalas insisted wasn't his, with a key that belonged to Angela Metier, who went missing several years ago. He contacts Det. Renée Ballard, the only paid member of the LAPD's Cold Case Unit, then sees the case he'd expected to close with the discovery of Angela's body opening even wider when he and Ballard link Angela's death to the unsolved disappearances of several other female hikers. Stilwell's attempts to identify the vandals who chopped down several rows of vintner Oliver Marquez's grape vines and defaced the island's famous chimes tower with the bold letters "FSID" quickly lead to suspects whose apprehension presents problems that call for a diplomat rather than a police officer. Throughout, veteran Connelly intertwines the cases in a way that provides a satisfyingly comprehensive sense of Stilwell's complicated workload, which is much greater than the sum of its parts. And when Stilwell follows one of them up the daisy chain to uncomfortably high-level conspirators, the stage is set for a climactic showdown that's also a highly effective cliffhanger. Welcome back to Catalina, where every day brings exciting new adventures--especially if you're in law enforcement. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.