“My lane? Has no lines.”

I note that I failed in my duty to review Season 5 of this excellent police procedural from Amazon Prime. I think that’s probably because I didn’t enjoy it as much as seasons 1–4. Season 5 felt as if it was playing its Greatest Hits a bit, with (yet) another old case of Bosch’s coming under scrutiny, and a former colleague with whom he’d had an unwise fling making life difficult for him.

Season 5 was based on Two Kinds of Truth, which is one of the later Bosch novels (#20, fact fans), in which he is no longer even employed by LAPD and is instead volunteering for the San Fernando police. It also features Bosch’s half-brother Mickey Haller, The Lincoln Lawyer. In splooging it into the TV show format, we ended up with Bosch unconvincingly going undercover and no Haller. For an officer who has been featured in LA Times splash exposés, TV news reports, and several high-profile court battles to be working undercover in a drug gang? I kind of checked out. I think the show is better when it draws from more than one of Michael Connelly’s novels. The Haller substitute, by the way, is “Money” Honey Chandler, played by the always reliable Mimi Rogers.

Season 6 is a return to form, and it is great to see this ensemble cast working together again. Jaimie Hector as Jerry Edgar (far more developed than the long-dropped character in the novels) gets his own sub-plot concerning a Haitian mass-murderer; Lance Reddick as Irvin Irving is running for Mayor; Amy Aquino as Lt. Grace Billets is being undermined by the new squad captain; Madison Lintz as Maddie Bosch is interning for Money Honey; and even Crate and Barrel are back, with more to do. The show has built up this ensemble over the years, and it really is terrific, although the heart and soul of the show is still executive producer Titus Welliver in the titular role. Welliver’s portrayal is superb, convincingly bringing Bosch to life: I can’t imagine anyone else playing him.

This season is based on The Overlook (Bosch novel #13) and Dark Sacred Night (#21). The first concerns the murder of a doctor who had stolen radioactive material from a hospital lab; the second is a cold case Bosch is working for a friend, the unsolved murder of a teenage runaway. Disappointingly, Renée Ballard (Bosch’s unofficial cold case partner from Dark Sacred Night) does not feature.

I yomped through this season from Friday through to Tuesday, and if you’ve not yet sampled Bosch, I envy you the pleasure of now being able to work through all 60 episodes. There’s one more season to come.

My original review of Season 1 is here. You can follow the breadcrumb trail of other reviews from there.