‘Bosch: Legacy’ explodes into Season 2

Where’s Maddie?

If you watched Season 1 of “Bosch: Legacy,” the Amazon Freevee streaming series based on Michael Connelly’s bestselling books about Los Angeles detective Harry Bosch, you know (spoiler alert if you’re way behind) that it ended with a heart-stopping scene in which Bosch’s daughter, Maddie, a newly minted police officer, was attacked in her apartment by a man in a luchador mask.

Season 2 plunges right back into that event, showing us Maddie’s fierce fight with her attacker, which ends when he drugs and abducts her.

It’s an explosive opening for the second season of “Bosch: Legacy,” the second streaming series to be based on the beloved character created by Connelly. The first, “Bosch,” ran for seven seasons on Amazon, but neither the fans nor Connelly (who has been an executive producer and writer for both series) could let the detective go.

In this series, Bosch is retired from the Los Angeles Police Department and working as a private detective. The first four episodes of Season 2, on which this review is based, drop on Oct. 20, with the other six dropping two at a time each Friday through Nov. 10 on Amazon’s Freevee streaming service.

The first two episodes are all about the search for Maddie (Madison Lintz). When Bosch discovers her empty apartment, he goes into full investigation mode — and full protective father mode. Harry has always been intense, but this is a whole other level. The brilliant Titus Welliver plays him like a bomb going off, powered by rage and fear.

But he’s not alone. The LAPD turns out in force to find one of their own, and Bosch’s current crew is on deck: Defense lawyer Honey Chandler (Mimi Rogers), who has also been a mentor to Maddie, and tech expert Mo Bassi (Stephen Chang) drop everything to help.

Some of the fan favorites from “Bosch” also show up, including Jamie Hector as Bosch’s former partner Jerry Edgar and the wisecracking now-retired detectives Crate and Barrel (Gregory Scott Cummins and Troy Johnson).

As we’ve seen him do before, Edgar tries to calm Bosch and steer him away from treading on the official investigation.

“F—k policy,” Bosch growls. “I can’t do nothing.”

The two episodes are breathlessly paced yet focus on the detailed police work that will lead to Maddie’s attacker and her terrifying whereabouts: a cigarette butt, a twig stuck in a rug, a jet’s roar on a video.

It all barrels toward a riveting, emotional rescue. As Edgar says to Bosch, “Everybody counts or nobody counts — that’s your thing. But family counts a little bit more.”

Episode 3 jumps forward four months, with Maddie and Bosch struggling to recover. They’re both living in Bosch’s striking hillside house, which was damaged by an earthquake in Season 1, and it’s tense, as is Maddie’s return to work on the police force.

But Bosch is soon busy working a new case. Most of Season 2 is based on Connelly’s 2015 book “The Crossing,” in which Bosch first worked for his half brother, Mickey Haller, a defense lawyer — the natural enemy of a police detective.

Haller is the star of the Netflix series “The Lincoln Lawyer,” played by Manuel Garcia-Rulfo. Because that show is on a different streaming service, he and Bosch can never meet on screen even though they work together in several of Connelly’s books.

“The Crossing” is adapted for “Bosch: Legacy” by subbing Honey “Money” Chandler for Haller. She persuades Bosch to help her investigate the case of a client, David Foster, who’s accused of the brutal murder of Lexi Parks, a city employee and the wife of an L.A. County sheriff’s deputy.

As Bosch digs into the case, other murder victims turn up. He and Chandler are also dealing with repercussions of the case of hedge fund villain Carl Rogers, which stretches back through Season 1 and began during the last season of “Bosch.” And who are those two violent thugs who are tailing Harry, Honey and Maddie?

It looks like another thriller of a season for “Bosch: Legacy.” And if you never get enough of Harry, Connelly’s terrific new novel, “Resurrection Walk,” will be published on Nov. 7. It brings Bosch and Haller together again, and Connelly will be on stage to talk about the book, the TV series and more at the Tampa Bay Times Festival of Reading on Nov. 11 in St. Petersburg.

How to watch

The first four episodes of Season 2 of “Bosch: Legacy” drop on Freevee on Oct. 20. The other six episodes will be released two at a time each Friday through Nov. 10.

Tampa Bay Times Festival of Reading

Michael Connelly will be a featured author at the Times Festival of Reading, in conversation with Times book editor Colette Bancroft. The festival takes place from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Nov. 11 at The Palladium, 253 Fifth Ave. N., St. Petersburg. Tickets are $25 for general admission and are available at festivalofreading.com.