Ironwood by Michael Connelly

The New Thriller from the Master of Crime Fiction — A Paradise Island Turns Deadly

In Ironwood: A Catalina Novel, #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly returns to the sun-drenched shores of Catalina Island with a pulse-pounding follow-up to Nightshade.

Detective Sergeant Stilwell thought his posting on Catalina — twenty-two miles of ocean away from the chaos of Los Angeles — would be a quiet exile. But paradise has its secrets. When a tip from a confidential informant leads to a midnight drug drop at the remote Airport in the Sky, everything goes catastrophically wrong. Shots are fired. Deputies are down. A plane vanishes into the night.

Shut out of the official investigation into the deaths of his own men, Stilwell refuses to stand down. Working off the books, he uncovers a chilling connection to a four-year-old cold case: a woman who disappeared while hiking, and the mysterious backpack that just turned up. With help from LAPD’s Renée Ballard, Stilwell races to untangle a web of corruption, betrayal, and deadly secrets before the island’s fragile peace is shattered forever.

Gripping, atmospheric, and packed with Connelly’s trademark procedural brilliance, Ironwood is classic Michael Connelly at his very best — a tense, twist-filled thriller about justice, loyalty, and what happens when evil reaches paradise.