Highlights
- The Bosch universe is expanding with upcoming spin-offs, including the Renee Ballard series, with Maggie Q recently announced to play the lead.
- Bosch: Legacy season 3 filming is underway, and it’ll be partly based on the novel Desert Star, with Ballard potentially making an appearance in the new series.
- Ballard is a maverick cop who often collaborates with Bosch, with an emphasis on cold cases.
The Bosch universe is expanding in a very exciting way, with two upcoming spin-offs, to go alongside the highly anticipated third season of Bosch: Legacy on Amazon Freevee. Maggie Q has recently been cast as Renee Ballard, the cold case detective from Michael Connelly’s successful book series. As well as featuring in her own series, Ballard also features in crossover novels with Harry Bosch, and the two characters are set to lock horns in the Bosch television universe as well.
Filming on Bosch: Legacy season 3 is currently underway, and is partly based on the novel, Desert Star, which does feature Renee Ballard. However, no official announcement has been made on whether Maggie Q would feature in Bosch: Legacy in the form of a backdoor pilot to her own series. An untitled spin-off series featuring Bosch’s ex-partner, Jerry Edgar, has also been announced by Amazon as the Bosch: Legacy spin-offs continue to expand the crime saga.
Who is Renee Ballard?
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The Renee Ballard Book Series |
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The Late Show (2017) |
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Dark Sacred Night (2018) |
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The Night Fire (2019) |
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The Dark Hours (2021) |
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Desert Star (2022) |
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The Waiting (released on November 5, 2024) |
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Resurrection Walk (2023) (brief appearance) |
Renée Ballard is an LAPD detective who was first introduced as the protagonist in Michael Connelly’s novel The Late Show in 2017. Connelly has gone on record to note that Ballard was inspired by real-life LAPD detective Mitzi Roberts, who is also a consultant on the Bosch: Legacy series. In the book series, Ballard was originally introduced as a possible replacement for Harry Bosch, as his character had retired from the LAPD to become a private investigator. Connelly figured Ballard could continue the universe if he ever decided to retire Bosch’s character.
When the original Bosch series ended in 2021 after seven seasons, Harry Bosch followed the path of the books, and became a private investigator in the spin-off series, Bosch: Legacy, and Connelly has continued to write novels based around the character, and has used Harry Bosch and Renee Ballard in each other’s stories.
Ballard’s arc in The Late Show, saw her demoted from the elite Robbery Homicide Division to a graveyard shift in the Hollywood Division called “The Late Show” after fending off sexual harassment from her boss and being betrayed by her then-partner.
Ballard is a maverick cop just like Harry Bosch, and is determined to close cases, and is willing to bend the rules to achieve the desired outcome. Unlike Bosch, she is more adept at avoiding the political mess that Bosch gets caught up in, by negotiating with and getting favors from friends and allies in the department.
What will the spin-off series be about?
Ballard’s first interaction with Bosch was in Dark Sacred Night in 2018, when she catches him going through a cold case file. They team up to solve the murder of a teenage runaway, and Bosch recognizes her as a kindred spirit in many ways. Ballard and Bosch team up again in 2019’s The Night Fire when he asks her to help investigate a cold case with him.
In the 2022 book Desert Star, Ballard has agreed to stay with the LAPD in a new role. Ballard contacts Bosch and invites him to help with a new cold case division she has set up. This is interesting as it has been confirmed that Bosch: Legacy season 3 will be partly based on Desert Star, making it highly likely that Renee Ballard will appear in the upcoming series as part of a backdoor pilot into her own show.
Ballard’s job as the head of a cold cases division looks set to be the basis for the upcoming Renee Ballard series. Bosch’s next spin-off could lead to the possibility for crossovers where Harry Bosch and other characters from Bosch: Legacy could make appearances. Apart from Maggie Q being announced to play Renee Ballard, no other casting announcements have been made for the upcoming spin-off series.
What are Maggie Q’s other roles?
Maggie Q is an American actress who began her acting career in Hong Kong, with starring roles in action movies, Gen-Y Cops and Naked Weapon before breaking into Hollywood with supporting roles in Mission: Impossible 3 in 2006 and Live Free or Die Hard in 2007.
She has continued to work consistently in movies, portraying Tori Wu in the dystopian science-fiction action movie Divergent (2014), and its sequels, Insurgent and Allegiant. Maggie Q has also worked regularly on television, with the lead role in the action series, Nikita, between 2010-2013, and in a major supporting role as FBI Special Agent Hannah Wells in the political thriller series Designated Survivor alongside Kiefer Sutherland.
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