Black Tunnel, White Magic

This is a book that is surely about killers, but they don't take the spotlight. That belongs to the detectives who work the case, whose eyes are not jaundiced and who steadily, methodically close in. In them, you find humanity and hope in a city where killers are often kings. — Michael Connelly

'A great true-crime story and a great cop memoir — about how they do it and, above all, why they do it.' — Lee Child

A TRUE STORY OF MURDER AND BETRAYAL IN LOS ANGELES FROM LAPD DETECTIVE RICK JACKSON, A KEY INSPIRATION IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF HARRY BOSCH, WITH AN INTRODUCTION FROM MICHAEL CONNELLY

Lifelong LAPD Homicide Detective Rick Jackson takes us behind the scenes of the murder case he could never let go.

In June 1990, Ronald Baker was found repeatedly stabbed to death in a tunnel near Spahn Ranch, where the Manson Family once lived. Jackson and his partner, Frank Garcia, were assigned the case.

But who would have motive to kill a straight-A UCLA student? What about the proximity to the Manson ranch? Or the pentagram pendant around Ron's neck? Suspicions soon fall on Baker's two roommates, one Black, and one white.

As the case unfolds over the years, it becomes a sprawling tale of betrayal, grief, and redemption — as well as a portrait of Los Angeles on the brink, and America's reckoning with racial injustice in the wake of Rodney King.

Black Tunnel, White Magic is a true-crime odyssey into the dark, beating heart of a murder investigation, and shows the true cost of justice for the detectives themselves.