The Waiting is a 2024 crime thriller by bestselling author Michael Connelly, the sixth novel in the Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch series. Detective Renée Ballard and the LAPD's Open-Unsolved Unit receive a breakthrough DNA match connecting a recently arrested young man to a cold-case serial rapist and murderer known as the Pillowcase Rapist, responsible for a five-year reign of terror in Los Angeles. Because the suspect is only twenty-four, the link must be familial — his father was the killer. But as Ballard closes in, she runs into a baffling web of secrets and legal obstacles.

Simultaneously, Ballard's badge, gun, and ID are stolen in a burglary she cannot report without jeopardizing her career. Working the case alone and in secret, she is drawn into unexpected danger and ultimately turns to Harry Bosch for help. Adding another layer of complexity, Bosch's daughter Maddie — now a patrol officer — joins the cold case unit as a volunteer, but with an agenda of her own: a case she believes may be the most iconic unsolved crime in Los Angeles history.

Praised as "unputdownable" by Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) and hailed by The Real Book Spy as "Michael Connelly at his very best," The Waiting is available in hardcover, paperback, eBook, and audiobook formats. The audiobook is narrated by Christine Lakin, Titus Welliver, and Madison Lintz.