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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
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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 © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.