Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch is a fictional character created by American author Michael Connelly. Bosch debuted as the lead character in the 1992 novel The Black Echo, the first in a best-selling police procedural series now numbering 24 novels.
The novels are more or less coincident in timeframe with the year in which they were published. Harry, as he is commonly known by his associates, is a veteran police homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. He was named after the 15th-century Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch.
Titus Welliver portrayed the title character from 2015 to 2021 in Bosch, a television series adapted from the novels, as well as the spin-off series Bosch: Legacy and Ballard. Cameron Monaghan will play the character in the prequel series Bosch: Start of Watch.
Biography (book character) Background Bosch's mother was a prostitute in Hollywood who was murdered on October 28, 1961, when Bosch was 11 years old. His father, whom he met later in life, was Mickey Haller Sr., a prominent defense attorney known for representing mobster Mickey Cohen, among other clients.
Bosch spent his youth in various orphanages and youth halls, and with the occasional foster family. When he learned of his mother's murder, Bosch, then living at a youth hall, dived to the bottom of a pool, screamed until he ran out of air, and then swam back to the surface. This event is referred to in several Bosch novels.
He joined the United States Army at age 17, after getting his foster father to sign the enlistment papers. In Vietnam, Bosch was a "tunnel rat" (nicknamed "Hari Kari Bosch"), with the 1st Infantry Division—a specialized soldier whose job it was to go into the maze of tunnels used as barracks, hospitals, and on some occasions, morgues, by the Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army. While in the enemy tunnels, the Tunnel Rats would kill enemy soldiers they encountered, gather documents for analysis by military intelligence, and then plant C-4 high explosive charges that they would set to detonate after they exited the tunnels. Once, while on R&R leave in Hawaii, Bosch went AWOL, but returned to his unit and served two tours of duty in Vietnam. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal (U.S. Army) which can briefly be seen in Bosch season four episode 10, kept in a small wooden box alongside his passport and a LAPD Marksmanship Badge.
In both the books and the television show, Bosch has a daughter named Madeline "Maddie" Bosch with his ex-wife Eleanor Wish, a former FBI agent. Maddie spent most of her time with her mother in Hong Kong, where Eleanor was a professional gambler and star attraction at a Macau casino. Bosch saw his daughter in person only twice a year.
Eleanor had a personal security guard, Sun Yee, who was also her boyfriend. Eleanor was later killed during an attempt to rescue Maddie from Chinese thugs, detailed in 9 Dragons. Subsequently, Maddie lived with her father in Los Angeles.
LAPD career After his return from Vietnam and an honorable discharge from the Army, Bosch joined the LAPD and rose to the rank of Detective III, a position which entails both investigative and supervisory duties.
While in the LAPD, Bosch worked in the prestigious Robbery Homicide Division for five years but was drummed out by an Internal Affairs investigation involving Bosch's shooting of a suspect (The Dollmaker) who was later linked to nine murders. Following the investigation, which was conducted by Detectives Pierce Lewis and Don Clarke, Bosch was sent to Hollywood Division and assigned to the Homicide desk. (Lewis and Clarke also investigated Bosch in The Black Echo.)
At one point, Bosch left the LAPD and worked as a private investigator for three years. He left retirement and returned to the LAPD at the conclusion of The Narrows. After his return, Bosch was assigned to Robbery-Homicide's Open-Unsolved Unit, a cold case squad. Bosch transferred out of Open-Unsolved and into Homicide Special during the time between Echo Park and The Overlook.
During his time in the LAPD as covered in the novels, Bosch was in Hollywood Homicide and worked with Frankie Sheehan (Bosch's partner in Robbery-Homicide, who was later murdered in Angels Flight), Jerry Edgar (his longest-serving partner), and Kizmin "Kiz" Rider, the other members of Bosch's team in Hollywood Homicide.
In The Closers, Bosch was once again partnered with Rider, while Edgar remained in Hollywood Homicide. Bosch remained partnered with Rider until her transfer to the Chief's office after being shot during Echo Park.
During The Overlook, Bosch was partnered with Detective Ignacio "Iggy" Ferras, a younger detective with whom Bosch had not yet developed a solid rapport. In The Brass Verdict, which is told from Mickey Haller's perspective, he and his partner investigate the murder of a lawyer whose practice Mickey inherited, and Mickey realizes at the end that he and Bosch are half-brothers, though Bosch has always known this. In 9 Dragons, following them getting shot in The Overlook, Ferras now prefers to stay in the office and do the paperwork as much as possible. In the end, after Ferras attempts to defy Bosch and arrest the killer alone, he is killed, upsetting Bosch. In The Drop and The Black Box he is part of the Open-Unsolved Unit, which mainly works old unsolved cases using new methods, and is partnered with Detective David Chu. He is also partnered with Chu in The Reversal, which is told from the perspectives of both him and Mickey Haller, who is appointed Special Prosecutor against a man accused of murder of a child given a retrial. Both Bosch and Haller believe the man is guilty. In the short story Switchblade, during his time in this unit, he also investigated a murder by himself, which led to a homophobic man already in prison for a different, nearly identical murder. This led him to briefly encounter Haller again in The Gods of Guilt, in which the man he investigated was used as a hitman in an attempt to kill Haller's client.
Not a stranger to being second-guessed, Bosch gets investigated by the LAPD's IAD multiple times and is always cleared. In The Burning Room, he is partnered with a young detective named Lucia Soto. Their unit's commander suspends Bosch for a minor violation of departmental procedure after Soto and he cleared a tough homicide case. Bosch is forced to take retirement even though the disciplinary case against him is eventually dropped.
Post LAPD career In The Crossing, Bosch works as a criminal defense investigator for his half-brother Mickey Haller. Bosch's work helps Haller clear an innocent man who was wrongfully prosecuted for a crime that he did not commit. Although glad to help clear the man's name, Bosch did not enjoy working for the defense during the trial and decides to try something else.
He continues to work as a private investigator in The Wrong Side of Goodbye. He investigates the matter of locating the heir to the estate of a dying billionaire. He also accepts a position as a reserve officer working for the city of San Fernando, California Police Department. The chief of the San Fernando P.D. hires Bosch to work as a detective to benefit from Bosch's years of experience with the LAPD.
Bosch is partnered with Detective Bella Lourdes, and the pair solve a case involving a series of violent rapes. In Two Kinds of Truth, Bosch continues to work as a Detective for the SFPD. He helps clear a double homicide case involving the trafficking of illegal prescription painkilling pharmaceuticals. He also clears his name of wrongdoing in an old LAPD homicide case of his.
Dark Sacred Night sees Bosch pushed to his personal and professional limits. During the events of Two Kinds of Truth, he meets an oxycodone addict named Elizabeth Clayton. He takes her into his home to help rehabilitate her, promising to investigate the unsolved murder of her daughter Daisy. He fulfills this promise in Dark Sacred Night with the help of LAPD detective Renée Ballard (first introduced in Connelly's 2017 novel The Late Show), but Elizabeth relapses and ultimately overdoses—which is implied to be suicide—and Bosch struggles with the knowledge that Elizabeth's sobriety meant that she was constantly reminded of her daughter's death.
Meanwhile, Bosch investigates the cold case murder of a gangster in San Fernando which spirals out of control when a confidential informant is murdered. When the informant's killer is identified, Bosch realises the SFPD detective Oscar Luzon has undisclosed connections to the killer. Bosch engineers an interrogation, but Luzon attempts suicide and winds up comatose. Bosch accepts responsibility to protect Bella Lourdes, knowing that it will cost him a job.
These pressures come to a head when Bosch and Ballard confront Daisy Clayton's killer and coerce a confession out of him. Bosch then tips off the grieving, Mafia-connected father of another victim about the killer's location. He ultimately relents and alerts the LAPD, but once again faces an uncertain future.
In The Night Fire, Bosch is once again pushed to his limits. He is informed that he has contracted chronic myeloid leukemia from his exposure to radiation in The Overlook, and has also been working as the investigator for his half brother once again (due to Cisco having to undergo an appendectomy). After Haller gets his client off for murdering a judge, the LAPD detective assigned to the case tells Bosch he has "undone everything he did with the badge". This causes Bosch to investigate other leads in the case to find the true killer, which leads him to a law firm also tied to a case Ballard is currently investigating. Bosch ultimately lets the killer go to save Ballard, but manages to find the killer's exit strategy (though is not present for the arrest).
Meanwhile, after the death of his former partner, who was his mentor when he first became a detective, Bosch is given a murder book by his partner's widow, which he took home after retirement. The murder book details the murder of a drug addicted ex-convict. Upon the widow's request, Bosch investigates the murder with Ballard's help, despite quickly realizing his former partner may not have investigated the case at all. In the end, they solve the case and arrest the killer, but Bosch becomes disillusioned after discovering that his partner took the case not to solve it, but to prevent anyone else from doing so, as he was the father of the victim. In the end, Bosch decides to investigate another murder which his partner had taken records on, and Ballard agrees to help him.
In The Law of Innocence, Bosch, along with a former client, posts bail for Haller after he is arrested for the murder of a client. It is established that Haller successfully sued the LAPD for damages due to Bosch's leukemia, and that Bosch is managing his condition with medication. Bosch and Cisco investigate anyone with a grudge against Haller, leading them to the real killer, who is in a scam involving the FBI, which they reveal to Haller. Bosch also states that he posted Haller's bail because he believes Haller is innocent, not because they are brothers, implying he wouldn't have if he believed Haller was guilty.
In The Dark Hours, a case Ballard is investigating is linked to a cold case Bosch investigated a while ago, leading them to partner up again. He helps with the case, as well as another one involving two rapists. Ballard solves the cases and brings the killers to justice, and Bosch later accompanies her in confronting another man involved in the rapes and getting his confession, before deciding to bring the evidence to the FBI.