My Readers Guide to Ironwood by Michael Connelly has Jen’s Quick List, a character list, plot summary, and spoilers. Let’s discuss book two in Connelly’s new procedural mystery series, which mainly takes place on Catalina Island.
Readers Guide to Ironwood
Table of Contents:
- Jen’s Quick Take on Ironwood
- Character list
- Plot Summary with Spoilers for Ironwood
- Boschverse Easter Eggs (did I miss any? tell me in comments!)
Jen’s Quick Take on Ironwood
- Ironwood is book two in Michael Connelly’s new Catalina Island series.
- In my opinion, Ironwood can be read as a standalone, but if you need a quick refresher, I did a review with spoilers for book one, Nightshade.
- The main thing from book one that comes up is that Mayor Douglas Allen’s corruption case is going to trial, but that’s not a huge part of the plot of Ironwood.
- Okay fellow Connelly fans, you can come for me, but I found Ironwood a bit dry. And Stilwell felt even blander than in the last book, though his refusal to tell us his first name amuses me.
- This book had a guest appearance by Renee Ballard, who I’m also not the biggest fan of (sorry! Someone came at me in the comments about that too!)
- Publication date: May 19, 2026 by Little Brown. Thanks so much to them for my advance copy!
- Photos in the post are from the Catalina Island Conservancy, which runs conservation programs and has a lot of volunteer opportunities, including a vacation retreat!
Character List for Ironwood
- “Stil” Stilwell* he insists that he DOES have a first name. What is it? Tell me in comments!
- Tash Dano: Stil’s girlfriend and the Cataline Island harbor master
- Deputy Alton Quigley: new deputy
- Deputy Isla Ramirez*
- Deputy O’Connor
- Deputy Ross McGowan
- Deputy Dawn Stabile
- Captain Corum*
- Ernie Simon: homicide investigator from L.A.
- Bob Trestle: Ernie’s (work) partner
- Renee Ballard: Open/Unsolved (cold case) investigator
- Tom Laffont: cold case team
- Paul Masser: cold case team
- Maddie Bosch: cold case team
- Lt. Gavin Lambert: Quigley’s former boss in Narcotics.
- Walter Bessemer: Lambert’s military buddy
- Benito Martinez: a lawyer
- Art Sellers: Catalina Island local
- Gwen Bassett: Catalina Island bartender and Kent’s girlfriend
- Angela Metier: woman missing since 2022
- Bryce Kaufman: LAPD Missing Persons detective
- Gonzalo Kalas: ferry passenger
- Lionel McKey* local reporter
- Oliver Marquez: Catalina Island vinegard owner
- Kent Middleton: Conservancy ranger
- Bo Meriam: ranger
- Mick Dunaway: head ranger
Asterisked * characters were in book one; if I missed anyone, leave me a comment.
Plot Summary With Spoilers for Ironwood
Part One: The Grove
Stilwell and his two deputies (Ramirez and Quigley) are getting ready to intercept a drug drop, based on intel from Quigley’s confidential informant.
A small plane flies in from Mexico to hand over a duffel bag to someone on an ATV. Stilwell chases the ATV which veers off the road.
Meanwhile, someone from the plant shoots both Ramirez and Quigley.
Stilwell is questioned about the tragedy. Quigley is dead and Ramirez badly injured. Homicide investigator Ernie Simon asks Stilwell why Quigley was transferred to Catalina. Stilwell doesn’t know, but suggests that being transferred there is always a punishment.
Captain Corum arrives, theorizing there was a shooter hiding inside the plane. Corum tells Stilwell to stay out of this investigation because he’s a witness.
Stilwell looks into the ATV, which was reported stolen.
The next morning Stilwell watches passengers on the first ferry back to L.A. He doesn’t see anyone suspicious, but asks for the list of passenger reservations and zeros in on a solo passenger named Gonzalo Kalas.
Stilwell is able to find out that Kalas is a cartel courier. He and Simon arrest him. Simon and Stilwell try to question Kalas, but he asks to call a lawyer.
Corum calls to remind Stilwell to stay out of the investigation.
Stilwell goes to the substation lost and found and finds an expensive backpack which he traces to Angela Metier, missing on Catalina Island in 2022. Why, then did her backpack turn up in the lost and found two months ago?
Stilwell leaves a message for Bryce Kaufman, the detective on Metier’s case. Then calls Tash and asks about the harbor CCTV cameras. In the footage, a man in baseball cap, sunglasses and a face mask leaves Metier’s backpack on a bench near the harbor.
Kaufman tells Stilwell that a woman named Renee Ballard from the Open/Unsolved unit in L.A. asked for Metier’s file.
Metier’s car was found in the parking lot for the ferry to Catalina Island. A car was a mini Cooper, but Stilwell found a Ford keychain in her backpack.
Stilwell meets the LAPD cold case unit with the backpack. Ballard explains the skeleton of a woman named Candace Neary was recently found in Griffin Park. She and her team started looking for other cases of young women who went missing while hiking. They found four women: Neary, Metier, and two in the National Park Service jurisdiction
Renee believes the killer wanted the backpack to be found and think it might be worth taking the case public.
Stilwell offers to cover the Catalina Island side of the investigation, as Metier planned to hike the trans Catalina trail.
Stilwell goes to see Ilsa Ramirez in the hospital. He also asks Corum if they are looking into Quigley’s background.
When Stiwell gets back to Catalina Island, Gonzalo Kalas is missing.
Mercy, the office manager, says that ICE agents picked him up. Stilwell suspects the agents were fake.
Stilwell tells Tash that he’s looking into Angela’s disappearance. Tash says that Lionel McKey, a local reporter, was obsessed with Angela’s case.
Stilwell looks at a map of the Catalina trail and finds a road from Blackjack Mountain down to the Ironwood Grove and Echo Lake. He thinks that a black squiggle drawn on Angela‘s backpack is supposed to suggest the road.
At the Ironwood Grove, they find Angela’s remains.
Part Two: The Impenetrable Darkness
At Quigley‘s funeral, Simon tells Stilwell that Lambert, Quigley’s former boss, claimed that Quigley asked to be transferred to Catalina because wanted out of the narcotics division in Los Angeles.
Bosch Easter Egg:
YES!!! Bosch makes a brief appearance at Quigley’s funeral, picking up a rifle shell from the grass. (He definitely does this in the TV series. I’m not sure if he does it in the books, but let me know in comments!)
Ballard tells Stilwell that Angela died from strangulation, as did Candace. Ballard tells Stilwell that Bosch (her mentor) says the answer is always in the murder book.
So Stilwell looks at the murder book:
Still notices that both Candace and Angela’s killers buried them near trees. He sees a video of volunteers right near the tree where Candace was found. He calls Ballard and tells her to play the footage. Kent Middleton, now a conservancy ranger on Catalina Island, is interviewed in the clip.
Stilwell wonders if Middleton applied for the Catalina job so he could be near Angela’s remains.
When Stil gets back to the station, both of his deputies are responding to vandalism at a vineyard.
The vineyard’s owner, Oliver Marquez, is very upset. Still finds a wildlife camera that he’s hoping caught the perpetrator.
Stilwell goes to the Catalina Island Conservancy, where he asks Mick Dunaway for the wildlife camera footage. The footage shows someone wearing a yellow and blue shirt.
Stilwell notices that Marquez’s grandson is wearing a yellow and blue shirt and has a bandage around his leg.He accuses Oliver Marquez of insurance fraud.
Returning to the Metier investigation, Stilwell looks into Gwen Bassett, Middleton’s girlfriend and a bartender in town. Ballard and Stilwell discuss how to take Middleton down. Stil gets an apartment in Middleton’s complex for Ballard and her team to use.
Ballard and her team arrive, along with Ernie Simon. Stilwell sends Dawn to spy on Simon and Trestle. Meanwhile, he gives the cold case team everything he has on Middleton.
Stilwell goes to the air traffic control tower and decides somebody was hiding in a tree at the side of the runway, probably the shooter.
Stilwell tells Simon that he thinks someone set Quigley up for something he did on the mainland. And that Lambert might be hiding something too.
Part Three: The Game Overlook
Stilwell and Barnes head to the Chimes Tower to cover up some graffiti. The culprits also tagged the casino. They look at CCTV footage.
Stilwell goes to the hardware store where the owner says someone shoplifted the graffiti paint. The high school security officer tells Stilwell that “FDID” on the graffiti means “free speech is dead.” He thinks the graffiti artist is the mayor’s son.
Stilwell tells Matthew (the mayor’s son) to stop with the graffiti and he will let it go. He then heads to the mainland to visit Ilsa. She tells him that the shooter yelled Quigley’s name AND that she and Quigley (married with kids) had a romantic relationship.
Stil learns that Alton Quigley initiated a divorce. Quigley’s lawyer, Benito Martinez, refuses to break attorney client privilege, but hints that Gavin Lambert was having an affair with Quigley’s wife.
Another Bosch Easter Egg!
After a call from Renee, Stilwell rushes to the cold case unit and meets the rest of the team, including Maddie Bosch.
Laffont says that Middleton has has had three days off from work. He took the ferry to the mainland and rented a car, then headed to the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains/Angeles National Forest. Five young women have disappeared hiking in similar parks over the past 15 years.
Based on this, the team gets permission to install a keystroke logging software on Middleton’s computer.
Middleton has been cyberstalking a young hiking guide named Molly Young on multiple social media platforms. He reserved a prepaid private hike with Molly under two different names.
The surveillance team plans to station agents all around the hike area. Stilwell be joining, but he’s worried about his physical abilities.
Middleton shows up. Molly says if the second hiker doesn’t show they’ll have to cancel. The team goes in. There’s no kidnap kit in Middleton’s backpack.
Stilwell is convinced that Middleton knew they were watching him, and that he had a kit, but dumped it.
Ballard and Stillwell head the search for the kit in an office building where Middleton had a job interview. They find nothing then Stil has the idea to look in an escape hatch panel in the elevator.
They tell Middleton that they found his kit which includes a notebook describing all his kills. Plus an abduction kit.
Part Four: Blue Smoke
Ballard calls to say that Middleton killed himself in jail. Stil calls Lionel to tell him to go to Ballard’s press conference in L.A.
With that case wrapped up, Still goes back to the substation to do some research on Gavin Lambert, who is a sharp shooter.
Stil decides to look at this CCTV footage for the ferry, figuring that Lambert would have to be carrying a long sniper rifle, but doesn’t find anything.
Mayor Allen accuses Stil of harassing his family. Stil also finds out that Ernie Simone retired and Trestle is on vacation. Is someone directing resources away from the case?
He finds records of a boat belonging to Bessemer, Lambert’s military buddy. Stil hides, watching Lambert enter the substation with a gun. He ambushes Lambert and handcuffs him. Corum calls and tells him to let Lambert go.
Instead, Stil hangs up and calls Lionel.
What did you think of this one? Please leave a comment!