Angels Flight (harry Bosch, #6; Harry Bosch Universe, #8)

Early on a Saturday morning, LAPD Detective Harry Bosch receives a phone call from Deputy Chief Irvin Irving. Bosch has been awake all night waiting for his wife, Eleanor Wish, to come home. He fears the call brings news about her, but Irving orders him to assemble his Hollywood Division homicide partners, Kizmin Rider and Jerry Edgar, and report to Angels Flight, a historic inclined railroad in downtown Los Angeles.

The assignment is unusual: The crime scene falls outside Hollywood Division's jurisdiction. When Bosch arrives, he finds Robbery-Homicide Division (RHD) and Internal Affairs Division (IAD) investigators already present. His former partner, Frankie Sheehan, warns him the case is bad. Inside a train car, two victims lie dead: Catalina Perez, shot in the chest, and a man shot multiple times. Irving reveals the male victim is Howard Elias, a prominent civil rights attorney whose "Black Warrior" lawsuit is set to begin jury selection Monday. Elias represents Michael Harris, who claims RHD detectives tortured him during an interrogation connected to the kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Stacey Kincaid, stepdaughter of Sam Kincaid, heir to a car dealership dynasty. Because RHD has a conflict of interest, Irving assigns the case to Bosch's team, joined by four IAD detectives led by John Chastain.

Bosch disputes the shooting sequence proposed by RHD. A wound to Elias's buttocks, fired with the gun pressed against his body while he was face-down, suggests a vindictive final shot driven by personal rage. A bloodless scratch on Elias's wrist indicates his watch was removed well after death. Bosch later learns four RHD detectives took the watch and wallet to stage a robbery and forces them to return the items.

The investigation fans out. Bosch and Chastain notify Elias's wife, Millie, and son, Martin, who accuse the police of murder. Millie reveals Elias had been staying at a downtown apartment while preparing for trial. There, Bosch finds evidence of a secret lover and a phone book containing the home number of Carla Entrenkin, the LAPD's civilian inspector general. When he returns later, the phone book and an answering machine message have vanished. He suspects Entrenkin entered the apartment to remove evidence of her affair with Elias.

Confronted, Entrenkin confirms the relationship and agrees to share information in exchange for Bosch protecting her identity. She reveals that Elias's trial strategy file outlines his plan to "deliver the murderer" of Stacey Kincaid to the jury. She also shows Bosch anonymous letters mailed to Elias with cryptic clues, including a third note found in his jacket pocket: "he knows you know."

At Elias's office in the Bradbury Building, Bosch finds notebooks referencing a source code-named "Parker," someone inside Parker Center, LAPD headquarters, who had been feeding Elias confidential IAD files. He also discovers a printout of a woman called "Mistress Regina" with a web address. When a judge appoints Entrenkin as the special master, a court-appointed reviewer who screens privileged files, she orders the team out of the office.

The chief of police announces that the FBI will join the investigation and activates the civil disorder readiness plan. Bosch negotiates with FBI agent Roy Lindell: The bureau will investigate potential police suspects while Bosch's team follows the trail Elias pursued into the Stacey Kincaid murder.

Breakthroughs come quickly. Edgar finds that Elias subpoenaed customer receipts from the car wash where Harris worked. Elias's private investigator, Jenkins Pelfry, reveals the key evidence: A receipt shows that Kate Kincaid, Stacey's mother and Sam's wife, brought her white Volvo to the car wash with Stacey's schoolbooks inside, and Harris's time card confirms he was working that day. Harris's fingerprints landed on the books when he vacuumed the car, not during an abduction.

Rider makes the most disturbing discovery. The Mistress Regina web page contains a hidden link accessed by clicking on the woman's eye and entering the password "humbert humbert," a reference to the pedophile protagonist of Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita. The link leads to a secret online pedophile network containing images of children being sexually abused, including Stacey Kincaid. Rider determines from autopsy photos that the abuse predates the supposed abduction, proving Stacey was victimized within her own home. The team concludes Sam Kincaid abused and killed his stepdaughter, staged the abduction, and planted her body near Harris's apartment to frame him.

As the case accelerates, Bosch's personal life collapses. Eleanor calls to say she is leaving, telling him she loves him but not enough. Bosch shelters Sheehan at his house after press conference fallout. During a late-night conversation, Sheehan confesses the torture allegations are true: He lost control and put a plastic bag over Harris's head. When Bosch tells him Harris has been cleared, the news destroys Sheehan. Bosch returns home to find Sheehan dead on the back deck, shot with an untraceable pistol.

Kate Kincaid confesses on tape at the Brentwood house, confirming her husband killed Stacey and framed Harris. She admits she sent the anonymous notes to Elias and reveals she confronted her husband after the detectives' visit. Lindell calls to report that Sam Kincaid and his security chief, D.C. Richter, have been found tortured and shot at The Summit, the Kincaids' gated mansion community, killed by Kate before she came to Brentwood. Before Bosch can intervene, Kate wraps herself in her daughter's blanket and shoots herself.

The official story takes a different shape. Ballistics match slugs from Elias's body to Sheehan's service weapon, and the chief announces Sheehan as the Angels Flight killer. The Kincaid deaths are presented as a mother's murder-suicide, with no mention of the pedophile ring. Then Entrenkin hints that something in the files contradicts the case against Sheehan.

Reexamining the records, Bosch discovers Chastain was subpoenaed by Elias as a witness the day before the murder and tried to refuse service. Captain John Garwood confirms Bosch's theory: Chastain's investigation of Harris's complaint confirmed the torture, but a superior ordered it declared unfounded. Chastain had been Elias's mole for years, and Elias planned to expose him on the stand. To prevent this, Chastain killed Elias and Perez on Angels Flight, planted old bullets from a prior Sheehan shooting into the evidence to fabricate the ballistics match, and murdered Sheehan with an untraceable pistol, staging the death as suicide.

Bosch handcuffs Chastain and drives toward Parker Center, but amid civil unrest in South Los Angeles, a mob attacks the car. Bosch crashes through police barricades to safety, but Chastain, handcuffed in the backseat, is pulled from the vehicle and beaten to death.

Irving arrives to manage the scene. Bosch understands the official story will cast Chastain as a department martyr, and that Irving will leverage the threat to Bosch's career to buy his silence. Eleanor is gone, Sheehan is dead, and the city burns. In the aftermath, Bosch wanders into a looted liquor store where the owner offers him a last cigarette. Inside a matchbook he reads: "Happy is the man who finds refuge in himself." Bosch reflects on the calm he felt during the attack, but he knows he will never forget Chastain's final scream, the sound of a man's absolute terror.