CRIME NEVER SLEEPS.

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Detective Renée Ballard works 'The Late Show', the notorious graveyard shift at the LAPD.

It's thankless work for a once-promising detective, keeping strange hours in a twilight world of crime.

Some nights are worse than others. And tonight is the worst yet.

Two shocking cases, hours apart: a brutal assault, and a multiple murder with no suspects.

Ballard knows it is always darkest before dawn. But what she doesn't know - yet - is how deep her investigation will take her into the dark heart of her city, the police department and her own past...

The Late Show will keep you up all night: it's time to meet Detective Renée Ballard.

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'The new novel from America's greatest living crime writer is a gripping thrill ride that will entrance you and keep you reading until the small hours' Daily Express

'It has been more than ten years since Connelly, one of the world's greatest crime writers, last launched a major new character. Superb storytelling - this cements Connelly's place at the very top of the crime-writing tree' Daily Mail

'Classy and clever, with a tenacious heroine' Sunday Mirror

'Connelly achieves an enormous amount in these pages: he creates a new character who immediately leaps into life; and controls a complex, fast-paced plot full of surprises' Evening Standard

'The Late Show introduces a terrific female character: Detective Renée Ballard. The pacing is breathless ... Ballard has astonishing resourcefulness and bravery - she is complicated and driven' New York Times

'Although the usual Connelly fingerprints are in evidence here - the real achievement is the creation of his tenacious heroine, Ballard' Guardian

'Ballard is significantly more than a Bosch replacement or clone - an absorbing character on her own terms. Connelly has created yet another potentially iconic tarnished knight of those perennially mean streets' Irish Times

'A characteristically complex tale of murder and police corruption' Mail on Sunday (Thriller of the Week)

'First there was Detective Harry Bosch, then Lincoln lawyer Mickey Haller, and now comes Renee Ballard, ace thriller writer Michael Connelly's first new protagonist in 10 years. A nail-bitingly exciting investigation featuring a finely realised new character from one of America's finest contemporary novelists' Irish Independent

A compelling thriller introducing a driven, young detective trying to prove herself in the LAPD.

Renée Ballard works the night shift in Hollywood, beginning many investigations but finishing none as each morning she turns her cases over to day shift detectives. A once up-and-coming detective, she's been given this beat as punishment after filing a sexual harassment complaint against a supervisor.

But one night she catches two cases she doesn't want to part with: the brutal beating of a prostitute left for dead in a parking lot and the killing of a young woman in a nightclub shooting. Ballard is determined not to give up at dawn. Against orders and her own partner's wishes, she works both cases by day while maintaining her shift by night.

As the cases entwine they pull her closer to her own demons and the reason she won't give up her job - no matter what the department throws at her.

Praise for Michael Connelly:

'A superb natural storyteller' Lee Child

'One of the great crime writers' Daily Mail

'Connelly is a crime writing genius' Independent on Sunday