Michael Connelly introduces a new detective, and reviewer Bob Moyer is on the case.

Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer

NIGHTSHADE. By Michael Connelly. Little, Brown. 241 pages. $30.

He’s not like Harry Bosch, Michael Connelly”s hard-boiled, hard-bitten ex-LAPD detective, who drives an old jeep around, drives women away and lives on a downtown hillside.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s Detective Sergeant Stillwell drives a John Deere Gator, has a girlfriend, likes to go camping, and he’s on beautiful Catalina Island.

He’s there because he is a Connelly character who has one thing in common with Bosch — he doesn’t suffer fools and miscreants gladly. Embroiled in a kerfuffle with a murder squad colleague back in L.A., he got “exiled” to be the only detective on the island. He watches tourists get on and off the boats, handles a requisite number of drunk and disorderlies, and that’s about it. The biggest excitement he’s had is executing a search warrant for the tool used to mutilate a buffalo on an island ranch.

And it’s all downhill from there.

Shortly after, he discovers a body weighed down at the bottom of the harbor, a woman with a purple streak in her hair. His quandary is clear — he wants to keep the case, but he knows he has to turn it over to the murder squad and his nemesis.

 Like any good Connelly character, he does both. The dance that develops is Connelly at his best, Stillwell trying to uncover the murderer while covering up his off-procedure investigation. It’s the usual well plotted narrative, with seemingly unrelated incidents turning into shocking plot twists.

Like Bosch, Stillwell is a good cop, and a good read.