Bob Moyer has long been a fan of the Bosch detective world created by Michael Connelly. The recent spinoff Catalina series featuring Detective Sergeant Stilwell – known as Stil  – is no exception.

Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer

IRONWOOD. By Michael Connelly. Little, Brown and Company. 336 pages. $32.

How does this guy keep his job? It seems every time Detective Sergeant Stilwell gets a directive from his boss, he ignores it. In the second Catalina novel in Michael Connelly’s new series, Stil, as everyone calls him, is directing a supposed drug bust, when one of his deputies is shot and killed, and another seriously wounded. When the Sheriff of L.A. County tells him to stand down, he simply continues to investigate. He even crawls out a substation window to avoid the cameras the sheriff has installed to monitor his movements. As Connelly says, “… he remained a dog with a bone, unable to let go.”

His perseverance is bad for the shooter, but good for the reader. Connelly once again creates a complicated but cogent plot, in which Stil traces then tracks down the shooter. He also discovers a backpack found a week earlier that belonged to a woman who disappeared four years ago.

Someone is playing with him. His search for the woman leads him to the LAPD cold case unit — and Renee Ballard, another Connelly character from the Bosch series. Their collaboration brings a spark to the narrative and leads to the killer.

What neither Stil nor the reader realizes is the connections that lead to a surprising ending for everyone. Stil’s perseverance pays off, and he probably keeps his job — at least until the next installment of this spinoff series.