In this essay, pop-culture writer Greg Wilson examines Connelly's use of race in The Closers and argues that it fails to live up to its promises.

In The Closers, Michael Connelly offers fans their tenth novel focusing on the exploits of Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch. This time around, Bosch is working in the Open-Unsolved Unit of the LAPD, trying to crack the case of a sixteen-year-old girl murdered seventeen years before. The more closely Bosch examines the case, the more he is convinced—and therefore convinces the reader—that race played an important part in the murder. For all his intimations about racial issues in The Closers, however, Connelly never makes them an important part of the book. They are merely sensationalistic window dressing used to promise the reader more than the author delivers.

Early on, Bosch remarks to partner Kiz Rider that he likes his coffee...