“Nightshade” by Michael Connelly. Little, Brown and Co. via AP

Detective Sergeant Stillwell of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has been banished from the homicide division. His sin: accusing his former partner of dropping a murder case for lack of evidence when, according to Stillwell, there was plenty of it.

Branding him a troublemaker, his superiors packed him off to Catalina Island and put him in charge of a small, backwater office where cases normally range from petty theft to drunk and disorderly.

This was supposed to be punishment, but Stillwell likes it. The island is beautiful. Recently divorced, he’s already found a new love there. And he’s relieved that he’s free of department politics — or so he thinks.

In “Nightshade,” Stillwell is introduced as a new series ch

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