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Series · crime
Harry Bosch
The Harry Bosch series by Michael Connelly has 25 known books (25 published) and is best read in publication order, starting with The Black Echo (1992). The latest book with a fully recorded publication date is The Waiting.
- Books
- 25 known books (25 novels)
- Published
- 25
- First published
- 1992
- Status
- ongoing
- Shelved under
- Mystery & Crime
- Last checked
Start here: The Black Echo (1992) — then read straight through in publication order.
Reading order
The date order of published books and any announced future entries — the default way to read the series.
- Book 1:
The Black Echo
The Black Echo (1992) opens the Harry Bosch series, introducing Michael Connelly's LAPD homicide detective through a case that reaches back into Bosch's own history as a Vietnam-era tunnel rat. At 457 pages, it establishes the code -- everybody counts or nobody counts -- that will drive Bosch through more than three decades of novels to come.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Black Echo - Book 2:
The Black Ice
The second Harry Bosch novel, The Black Ice (1993), finds the LAPD detective again clashing with institutional convenience while working a case through Michael Connelly's Los Angeles of freeways, hillsides and jazz. At 322 pages, it's a lean early entry from before the series' storylines began interlocking with Connelly's wider crime universe.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Black Ice - Book 3:
The Concrete Blonde
Published in 1994 and running 407 pages, The Concrete Blonde is the third Bosch procedural, arriving as Connelly continued building the detective's LAPD career -- and his reputation for being relentless on behalf of victims nobody else will fight for.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Concrete Blonde - Book 4:
The Last Coyote
The Last Coyote (1995), the fourth book in the series, is where Bosch's own backstory as the orphaned son of a murdered Hollywood prostitute comes into sharper focus, following his suspension from the LAPD. It runs 407 pages, the same length as its predecessor, The Concrete Blonde.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Last Coyote - Book 5:
Trunk Music
Trunk Music (1997) is the fifth Harry Bosch novel, 446 pages long, published as Michael Connelly kept aging his detective in real time through Hollywood Division cases and the institutional friction that defines the series.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Trunk Music - Book 6:
Angels Flight
By Angels Flight (1999), the sixth entry at 393 pages, Bosch has moved into the LAPD's more elite ranks -- classic Connelly procedural territory, built on a reporter's eye for how policing, courts and the press actually operate in Los Angeles.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Angels Flight - Book 7:
A Darkness More Than Night
A Darkness More Than Night (2001) is the seventh Bosch novel, 418 pages, continuing the series' publication-order chronology in which career, partners and grudges accumulate book by book.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of A Darkness More Than Night - Book 8:
City of Bones
City of Bones (2002), the eighth installment at 400 pages, keeps Harry Bosch working Los Angeles homicide cases with the same insubordinate streak toward bureaucracy that has marked the character since his 1992 debut.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of City of Bones - Book 9:
Lost Light
Lost Light (2003) is the ninth Bosch book, 368 pages, arriving as Connelly's long-running series continued to track its detective's shifting assignments within and around the LAPD.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Lost Light - Book 10:
The Narrows
The Narrows (2004), the tenth entry at 404 pages, finds Bosch's case work intersecting with the wider Connelly universe that would later formally link him to characters like Mickey Haller and Jack McEvoy.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Narrows - Book 11:
The Closers
The Closers (2005) is the eleventh Harry Bosch novel and, at 416 pages, a well-known jumping-on point -- readers daunted by the series' 25-plus books often start here or with Renee Ballard and work backward, even though it already carries a decade of accumulated history for the detective.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Closers - Book 12:
Echo Park
Echo Park (2006), 361 pages, is the twelfth Bosch procedural, set against the same Los Angeles backdrop of freeways, hillsides and jazz that runs through the entire series.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Echo Park - Book 13:
The Overlook
The Overlook (2007) is the thirteenth book in the series and, at 233 pages, one of its shortest -- a compact entry in Michael Connelly's otherwise steadily lengthening run of Bosch procedurals.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Overlook - Book 14:
Nine Dragons
Nine Dragons (2009), the fourteenth Bosch novel at 377 pages, continues the detective's real-time aging through the LAPD, with his daughter Maddie increasingly part of the series' fabric.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Nine Dragons - Book 15:
The Drop
The Drop (2011) is the fifteenth entry, 388 pages, arriving as Bosch's career moved toward the cold-case Open-Unsolved Unit that would define much of his later work in the series.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Drop - Book 16:
The Black Box
The Black Box (2012), 466 pages, is the sixteenth Harry Bosch novel, one of the series' longer entries as Connelly kept threading LAPD procedure and Los Angeles politics through his detective's cases.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Black Box - Book 17:
The Burning Room
The Burning Room (2014) is the seventeenth book at 388 pages, published as Bosch's LAPD career pushed toward the retirement that the series would reach, and then complicate, in the books that followed.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Burning Room - Book 18:
The Crossing
The Crossing (2015), the eighteenth entry at 342 pages, arrived as Bosch moved through the later, un-retired stretch of his LAPD story that Connelly built book by book across the 2010s.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Crossing - Book 19:
The Wrong Side of Goodbye
The Wrong Side of Goodbye (2016) is the nineteenth Bosch novel, 392 pages, from Bosch's stint working cases for the small San Fernando Police Department, one of several institutional homes the character passes through across the series.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Wrong Side of Goodbye - Book 20:
Two Kinds of Truth
Two Kinds of Truth (2017), the twentieth entry at 464 pages, is among the longer Bosch procedurals, continuing Connelly's real-time chronicle of a detective now working well past a conventional retirement age.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Two Kinds of Truth - Book 21:
Dark Sacred Night
Dark Sacred Night (2018) is the twenty-first Harry Bosch novel and a pivotal one: 379 pages long, it's the book where the series formally merges with Renee Ballard's, the two detectives working cold cases together from here on. New readers wanting her origin first can read The Late Show (2017) before this one.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Dark Sacred Night - Book 22:
The Night Fire
The Night Fire (2019), 456 pages, is the twenty-second book and the second of the merged Bosch-Ballard entries, with the two detectives continuing their cold-case partnership in Connelly's Los Angeles.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Night Fire - Book 23:
The Dark Hours
The Dark Hours (2021) is the twenty-third entry, 400 pages, another Bosch-Ballard cold-case collaboration set amid the same LAPD institutional backdrop that has run through the series since 1992.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Dark Hours - Book 24:
Desert Star
Desert Star (2022), also 400 pages, is the twenty-fourth Harry Bosch novel, finding an aging Bosch still working cold cases alongside Renee Ballard as illness and age increasingly close in on him.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Desert Star - Book 25:
The Waiting
The Waiting (2024) is the twenty-fifth and, to date, most recent Harry Bosch novel, 416 pages, continuing Connelly's decades-long real-time chronicle of the detective's volunteer cold-case work alongside Renee Ballard.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Waiting
About the Harry Bosch series
Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch is an LAPD homicide detective shaped by abandonment: orphaned son of a murdered Hollywood prostitute, Vietnam "tunnel rat," institutional survivor. His code — everybody counts or nobody counts — makes him relentless on behalf of victims nobody else will fight for, and insubordinate toward every boss, bureaucracy and political convenience in Los Angeles. Michael Connelly introduced him in The Black Echo (1992), a case that reaches back into Bosch's Vietnam tunnels, and has aged him in real time ever since: through Hollywood Division and elite Robbery-Homicide, retirement and un-retirement, cold-case work in the Open-Unsolved Unit, a stint with tiny San Fernando PD, and finally volunteer cold-case work alongside Renee Ballard while illness and age close in.
The novels are classic procedurals elevated by Connelly's reporter's eye for how policing, courts and the press actually work, and by Los Angeles itself — freeways, hillsides and jazz — as a permanent co-star. The cast interlocks with Connelly's wider universe: Bosch's half-brother is defense attorney Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer; his daughter Maddie joins the LAPD; and detectives Renee Ballard and Jack McEvoy cross his path repeatedly. The series drove the long-running Amazon shows Bosch and Bosch: Legacy, and after more than thirty years it remains the spine of one of crime fiction's great connected universes.
Frequently asked questions
How many Harry Bosch books are there?
There are 25 Harry Bosch novels, from The Black Echo (1992) to The Waiting (2024). Bosch also appears in several Lincoln Lawyer and Renee Ballard novels beyond that count.
What order should I read the Harry Bosch books in?
Publication order, starting with The Black Echo. Bosch ages in real time, so publication order and story order are the same.
Do I need to read the Lincoln Lawyer books too?
Not strictly, but The Brass Verdict, The Reversal and Resurrection Walk are Mickey Haller novels co-starring Bosch, and The Crossing onward assumes you know Haller is Bosch's half-brother. Slotting the crossovers in by publication year gives the full story.
Where does Renee Ballard fit into the Bosch series?
Ballard debuts in The Late Show (2017); from Dark Sacred Night (2018) the two series effectively merge, with Bosch mentoring Ballard in the LAPD's Open-Unsolved Unit.
Is the Bosch TV series faithful to the books?
Bosch and Bosch: Legacy adapt storylines from many of the novels, with a younger Bosch and rearranged timelines, but the character and key cases come straight from the books.
If you like the Harry Bosch series
Reading order last verified .