Highlights
- Bosch: Legacy season 3 will be based on The Black Ice and Desert Star, and it explores the threat of a new drug from the Mexican Cartel.
- Harry Bosch investigates a mysterious death, leading to a dangerous world; Maddie Bosch may join forces with her father.
- The Black Ice could be adapted with changes, possibly featuring a known character as the victim; and Honey Chandler’s involvement may also be different.
Bosch: Legacy season 3 has completed filming, and very few details have been released about the upcoming season, but a lot can be drawn from the books it’s based on. Bosch: Legacy season 3 will be based in part on Michael Connelly’s 1993 book, The Black Ice. It’ll also be based on his 2022 book, Desert Star, which is a joint Harry Bosch and Renee Ballard novel.
It is not known how much of Bosch: Legacy season 3 will be based on The Black Ice, with aspects of Desert Star also featuring in the narrative as a set-up for the Renee Ballard spin-off series. The Ballard series will be solely based on Desert Star, with Titus Welliver making guest appearances as Harry Bosch alongside Maggie Q as Renee Ballard. Fans have been speculating over what exactly The Black Ice is and what might happen in the highly anticipated third season of Bosch: Legacy.
What is The Black Ice in The Harry Bosch book?
The Black Ice is a new drug that has been in circulation in Los Angeles, and it comes from the Mexican Cartel in Michael Connelly’s 1993 book, The Black Ice. The story sees a dead body found in a motel room on Christmas night. The victim is an LAPD narcotics detective called Cal Moore, who was charged with looking into the city’s drug deaths. His body was found with his head in several pieces and a suicide note in his pocket.
The media takes a special interest in the case, with rumors circulating that Detective Moore had been selling The Black Ice drug, and this could be what led to his death. However, the LAPD declare the death to be a suicide, but Harry Bosch isn’t convinced. The crime scene doesn’t add up, and Bosch launches his own investigation into the case, which leads him over the border, and into a very dangerous world.
How could Bosch: Legacy season 3 be different from the book?
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Bosch: Legacy Season 3 |
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Starring |
Titus Welliver, Mimi Rogers, Madison Lintz, Chang, Denise G. Sanchez, Scott Klace, Gregory Scott Cummins, Troy Evans, Orla Brady, Michael Reilly Burke, Andrea Cortes, Dale Dickey, Mark Rolston, Anthony Gonzales, Tommy Martinez and Maggie Q |
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Based on the books by |
Michael Connelly |
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Created by |
Tom Bernardo, Michael Connelly, and Eric Ellis Overmyer |
The Black Ice was Michael Connelly’s second Harry Bosch novel, so the most obvious difference in Bosch: Legacy season 3 will be that Bosch isn’t a detective in the LAPD anymore, like he was in The Black Ice book, and he’ll be working the investigation from the angle of his new career as a private investigator. However, this could work well, as in the book, Bosch launches his own investigation into the mysterious death which is very much under the radar of the official LAPD case.
As a private investigator, Harry Bosch has the freedom to take on his own cases, and isn’t bound to the LAPD and their particular theory, and this makes The Black Ice a good choice to adapt into Bosch: Legacy season 3. The Bosch-verse very much uses Michael Connelly’s books as a template, and makes changes where necessary.
The next big change from the book is likely to be based on who is investigating the case from the LAPD’s side. Maddie Bosch is very much a rookie cop in the LAPD, despite gaining a promotion to the Crime Reduction Unit in Bosch: Legacy season 2, but it’s possible she could look into the case. It might be a good opportunity for Maddie to join forces with her father, Harry Bosch, to investigate the case together. If Maddie was to crack the case wide open, it could lead to her getting her detective badge, and becoming a force to be reckoned with in the LAPD, just like Harry Bosch was.
The victim in The Black Ice novel was a detective by the name of Cal Moore, but this character hasn’t featured either Bosch or Bosch: Legacy, so the creative team behind Bosch: Legacy (which includes the author, Michael Connelly) might opt to change the character of Cal Moore to someone the audience already knows, to raise the stakes of the investigation, and add a layer of complexity to the case.
If the victim was a detective known to him, it would also explain why Harry Bosch would get involved in an active LAPD investigation. There is also the question over what Honey Chandler’s involvement in the case might be, as she wasn’t part of the investigation in The Black Ice book. Chandler’s run for DA might pre-occupy her in Bosch: Legacy season 3, but she is also likely to feature in this particular case, after working with Bosch on previous investigations.
Interestingly, The Black Ice nearly became a Hollywood movie back in the 90s, when Paramount Pictures acquired the rights to Michael Connelly’s novel. A screenwriter called Scott Rosenberg was hired to develop the script, and John Travolta was set to play Harry Bosch. It was rumored that Oliver Stone and Steven Soderbergh were interested in directing it, but nothing ever materialized. Bosch: Legacy season 3 will finally bring The Black Ice to the screen, and it could be set to be the most cinematic season in the Bosch-verse thus far.
