CANR
WORK TITLE: The Late Show
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 7/21/1956
WEBSITE: http://www.michaelconnelly.com/
CITY:
STATE: FL
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME: CANR 319
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born July 21, 1956, in Philadelphia, PA; son of W. Michael and Mary Connelly; married Linda McCaleb, April, 1984 (divorced); children: one daughter.
EDUCATION:Graduated from the University of Florida, 1980.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, novelist, editor, screenwriter, producer, and journalist. Worked as a newspaper journalist and crime beat reporter for the Daytona Beach News Journal and for the Los Angeles Times.
MEMBER:Mystery Writers of America (president, 2003-04).
AWARDS:Pulitzer Prize finalist for feature writing (with two other reporters), 1986, for an article in the Sun-Sentinel about a major airline crash and its survivors; Edgar Allan Poe Award for best first novel, Mystery Writers of America, 1993, for The Black Echo; Anthony Award for best novel, 1997, for The Poet, 1999, for Blood Work, and 2003, for City of Bones; Macavity Award for best novel, 1999, for Blood Work, and 2003, for City of Bones; Edgar Allan Poe Award nomination for best novel, 1999, for Blood Work, 2003, for City of Bones, and 2006, for The Lincoln Lawyer; Shamus Award, 2006, for The Lincoln Lawyer; Los Angeles Times Best Mystery/Thriller Award; Dilys Award; Nero Award; Barry Award; Audie Award; Ridley Award; Maltese Falcon Award (Japan); .38 Caliber Award (France); Grand Prix Award (France); Premio Bancarella Award (Italy); Pepe Carvalho award (Spain).
WRITINGS
Creator, writer, and consulting producer of television series Level 9, UPN, 2000. Producer of limited-edition jazz CD, Dark Sacred Night: The Music of Harry Bosch, released in conjunction with Lost Light, 2003. Appeared on limited-edition DVD, Blue Neon Night, Michael Connelly’s Los Angeles, released in conjunction with The Narrows, 2004.
Executive producer of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story, a documentary film; producer of online television series Bosch, based on the Harry Bosch Novels, for Amazon Studios/Amazon Prime, 2015—.
Author’s works have been translated into thirty-nine languages.
Blood Work was adapted to film, directed by Clint Eastwood, in 2002; The Lincoln Lawyer was adapted to film in 2011.
SIDELIGHTS
“Sheeesh! This guy can write a thriller!” remarked novelist Lucian Truscott IV, reviewing Michael Connelly’s novel The Poet for the Los Angeles Times Book Review. Numerous critics have been expressing essentially the same approval ever since Connelly’s first novel, The Black Echo, came out in 1992.
“Mysteries may be a popular genre, but some writers transcend the boundaries of the form. Connelly is one of them,” remarked Colette Bancroft in a profile of the author for the St. Petersburg Times. Connelly has won praise for his compelling plots, which often deal with contemporary social issues; for his writing style, sometimes described as lyrical; for his three-dimensional protagonists and well-drawn supporting characters; and for his evocation of the city of Los Angeles, the setting of most of his novels.
The Black Echo, which in 1993 won the Edgar Award as the best first mystery novel of the year, marked the initial appearance of Connelly’s signature detective-hero, Hieronymous “Harry” Bosch of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). Bosch, whom Connelly named for the fifteenth-century artist whose paintings depict a hellish world, is a gloomy man who was raised as an orphan after being born to a prostitute. He is haunted by his memories of Vietnam. He is also an honest and tenacious cop. Faced with the apparently drug-related death of an old Marine buddy, Bosch investigates with the help of FBI agent Eleanor Wish, and he becomes involved in a complicated plot that several reviewers praised for its convolutions and its sociological and psychological details. Marilyn Stasio, writing in the New York Times Book Review, commended The Black Echo as “one of those books you read with your knuckles—just hanging on until it’s over.” A Publishers Weekly reviewer found that Connelly transcends “the standard L.A. police procedural with this original and eminently authentic first novel.”
Many novelists would have been hard-pressed to follow up such success, but Connelly met the challenge with The Black Ice. The “ice” is a new drug, a mixture of heroin, crack, and PCP, and one of Bosch’s fellow officers has apparently been involved with it to the point of suicide. Connelly again received compliments from critics. The novel is “strong and sure,” commented a Publishers Weekly contributor, adding: “This novel establishes him as a writer with a superior talent for storytelling.” In Booklist, Wes Lukowsky called The Black Ice a “powerful novel in a series that seems destined for wide popularity” and advised readers: “Plan ahead before you read this buzz saw of a novel. Don’t start unless you have the next day off.” In the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Charles Champlin praised “Connelly’s command of police workings and his knowledge of the turf from L.A. south and across the border.” The Black Ice, he believed, is “a terrific yarn, extending the boundaries of the police procedural in the ingenuity of the plot and the creation of a character.”
When The Concrete Blonde was issued in 1994, Los Angeles Times Book Review contributor Champlin remarked: “Connelly joins the top rank of a new generation of crime writers.” This novel places Bosch on trial for having killed a suspected serial killer when the suspect was reaching for a toupee rather than for the presumed pistol. Bosch feels the man he killed was really the serial killer, but the female district attorney goes after him, seeing police brutality in the case. While Bosch is on trial, new murder victims crop up, bearing the modus operandi of the psychopath Bosch supposedly put out of action. “The new one is a police procedural of crackling authenticity,” wrote Champlin. “But it is also a courtroom drama worthy of any of those from the current crop of lawyer-novelists. And finally it is a cunningly conceived mystery in which, in the Agatha Christie tradition, a series of quite convincing suspects are set up and cast aside before the ultimate perpetrator is revealed.” Chicago Tribune Books reviewer Gary Dretzka called The Concrete Blonde “extremely satisfying.” Stasio, praising Connelly for keeping “a tight grip” on his material, remarked that “Bosch deserves the Kafka medal for holding on to his sanity while stumbling from one nightmare to the other.”
In Connelly’s 1995 novel, The Last Coyote, Bosch investigates the 1961 death of his mother. Bosch is the titular creature—he sees himself as a wild animal, and in his cliffside, earthquake-damaged house, he has recently had a traumatic confrontation with a real coyote. His search for his mother’s killer, a quest Bosch has time to pursue while suspended from the department for pushing a superior through a window, leads him into the upper reaches of local politics. Some critics noted that Connelly had set up and met a challenge. In Booklist, Lukowsky found the novel’s plot and setting to represent “heady territory for a cop novel, but Edgar winner Connelly handles it with style and grace.” Stasio commented that Bosch’s creator “has the tough, taut writing style to see him through his perilous and lonely search for justice.”
Connelly’s 1997 Trunk Music is “his best yet,” remarked a Publishers Weekly contributor. It marks a return to Bosch and his Los Angeles turf, after the redoubtable detective’s “involuntary stress leave.” The plot begins when the body of a would-be Hollywood player is found in the trunk of his Rolls Royce with two bullets in his head then winds through Las Vegas mob connections, FBI and LAPD machinations, and Hollywood deal making before ending up on a Hawaiian beach.
The obvious overtones of mob executions and money laundering provided the spark for something more complicated and original; the novelist, said Thomas Gaughan in Booklist, “has taken traditional motifs from crime, cop, private-eye, mystery, and noir novels and created a terrific read.” Gaughan called Trunk Music “one of the year’s best entertainments.” Stasio also used the word “terrific” to describe the book. Library Journal reviewer Rex E. Klett applauded the presence of “clear, crisp prose, intricate plotting, and ever-increasing suspense in yet another masterful procedural.”
With Angels Flight, Connelly returns the action to Bosch and his LAPD partners, Jerry Edgar and Kizmin “Kiz” Rider, a female African American officer. This time they are embroiled in a murder investigation that could set the city, still healing from riots set off by the acquittal of police accused in Rodney King’s beating, ablaze in its wake—the slaying of a controversial, high-profile black lawyer named Howard Elias, who has built his reputation and fortune suing LAPD officers for racially motivated police brutality. Elias is shot in downtown Los Angeles, on the eve of his biggest case yet, while taking a short train ride up a steep hill called Angels Flight. The logical suspect could be any one of thousands of L.A. police officers, with particular motivation for one of them. In addition to the complications of the case, personal stress builds for Bosch as his year-old marriage begins to dissolve while his wife, Eleanor Wish, returns to her former gambling habit and he tries to quit smoking. The case takes twist upon twist as Harry finds himself deep in racial tension, politics, and police corruption; he uncovers signs of evidence tampering by the first police officers to arrive at the crime scene, his ex-partner has apparent links to the crime, the civilian attorney who serves as inspector general is discovered to have been Elias’s lover, and then the investigation’s focus veers to a celebrated child-murder case, tied to wealthy and powerful Internet pedophiles. The denouement sees Harry stepping far beyond the rules and following the moral code of a reckless crusader when he uncovers the truth that motivated the killing.
Some reviewers voiced reservations about this work. Gaughan, writing in Booklist, faulted Angels Flight as “Connelly at less than his best” and feared “Bosch fans may feel that the author works too hard to create the tightest rat hole yet.” A Publishers Weekly contributor thought that “the finale, set against riots, delivers a brutal, antiestablishment sort of justice. This isn’t Connelly’s best. … Bosch seems to be evolving from the true character of early books into a sort of icon, a Dirty Harry for our times.” Stankowski, writing in the Library Journal, however, lauded the book as “another gripping police procedural” and found that Angels Flight “explores the underbelly of the human soul with the usual tight prose and swirling plot twists that Connelly’s legions of fans have come to expect.”
Lost Light has Bosch retired from the Los Angeles police, having left at the end of City of Bones. He is unable to leave detective work altogether, though, and he decides to investigate the four-year-old murder of a young woman. He discovers the case may relate to a robbery and have implications for national security. In the process he encounters old police colleagues and his ex-wife, Eleanor, now a professional gambler. He also finds he has a daughter. This is the first Bosch book that Connelly wrote in the first person, a move welcomed by some critics. “It’s a nice touch that helps us get an even better understanding of this complex man,” commented David Montgomery on the January Web site. According to Joe Hartlaub, a contributor to Bookreporter.com: “The shift in viewpoint—and in occupation—has the effect of reminding the reader of Raymond Chandler and thus Philip Marlowe.” The author’s deft handling of these shifts, Hartlaub wrote, shows “the depth of Connelly’s talent.” The novel, added Mostly Fiction Web site reviewer Chuck Barksdale, “is another quality effort” from the author.
Connelly pulls together plot lines from several of his novels in The Narrows. The story, written in both first-and third-person point of view, focuses on Bosch, now a private investigator who becomes involved with characters from The Poet and Blood Work. Bill Ott, reviewing the novel for Booklist, summarized it by saying: “Expertly juggling the narrative … Connelly builds tension exponentially through superb use of dramatic irony.” He concluded that the story has “a stunning finale” and that “this is Connelly at the top of his game.”
In The Closers, Bosch returns to the LAPD. Assigned to investigate cold cases, Bosch and his partner start looking for information that might help them solve a kidnapping and murder that took place seventeen years ago. The victim was a mixed-race teenage girl. Newly uncovered DNA evidence points them toward several leads, including a white supremacist, so the novel examines racial issues as well as crime solving, with Bosch wondering if racial bias on the part of police interfered with the original investigation. Some critics thought Connelly did an excellent job of handling this mix of topics and more. “Racism and a police conspiracy are strong enough themes to carry The Closers, but Connelly goes a step further to explore ‘the ripples’ of the teen’s murder,” such as its effect on her parents and friends, related Oline H. Cogdill in the Sun-Sentinel. Ayers wrote in the Library Journal that Connelly’s “compelling style makes even the most mundane details fascinating,” while Connie Ogle, reviewing the novel for the Miami Herald, dubbed it “essentially a clinic on how to keep a series compelling.” Connelly, Ogle added, “possesses a natural talent for cultivating characters over the long course of time and never seems to run low on ideas.” A Publishers Weekly reviewer commented that the book’s “premise could be a formula for a routine outing, but not with Connelly,” and noted that the author “comes as close as anyone to being today’s Dostoyevsky of crime literature.”
Echo Park places Bosch on a case involving a woman who vanished in 1993 and was possibly murdered, although her body has never been found. The district attorney’s office appears overly eager to close the case for political reasons, and Bosch believes early mishandling of the investigation allowed a serial killer to escape. While some reviewers were glad to see another Bosch book, Boston Globe contributor Sam Allis thought this entry showed “the lack of growth of Bosch as a character.” A far different opinion came from Washington Post Book World critic Kevin Allman, who commented: “Connelly’s chronicles of Bosch—like the detective himself—are aging like a fine Scotch.” Kate Ayers, writing for Bookreporter.com, found that the novel “shows Connelly in his best form,” and Harriet Klausner, on the Casa Mysterioso Web site, pronounced it a “superior police procedural, one of the best of the year.”
The next novel in the series, The Overlook, was published in 2007. Bosch, now working for the LAPD’s Homicide Special Unit, investigates the murder of a scientist who had access to radioactive materials from hospitals. Taking the necessary precautions to make sure unsavory characters did not gain access to the same materials to use against the city’s inhabitants, Bosch fights his way through bureaucracy to solve the case. Kevin R. Tipple, reviewing the novel for the Blogger News Network Web site, remarked: “Those with a cynical bent or widely read in the mystery genre will pick up on clues hinted at early in the novel which will be borne out on the end with one final twist in regards to a suspect. While a less than stellar read, Bosch not at his best is still entertaining.” Doug Perrers, writing in M/C Reviews Web site, noted: “Certainly worthy of the genre, the investigative work within The Overlook is credible, with conclusively linked scenes and excellent character development.” Perrers summarized: “Connelly has achieved in Harry Bosch a character who is growing and developing, and who draws on experiences as the storyline continues through the series.” Booklist contributor Ott suggested that readers “treat The Overlook like a tasty hors d’oeuvre: down it in one quick gulp, and look forward to the next Bosch entree.” According to a contributor to Kirkus Reviews, the novel is “a beautifully stripped-down case that makes up in tension and velocity what it lacks in amplitude.” The same contributor pointed out that “serialization hasn’t hurt Connelly any more than it did Charles Dickens.” The national security topic, wrote a reviewer in Publishers Weekly, “is a timely subject and one on which Connelly puts a brilliant new spin.”
In a question-and-answer session on the author’s home page, Connelly explained the way he visualizes the twists and turns Bosch follows throughout the course of the series. He noted: “Not a lot is planned ahead. I usually have a few loose threads dangling from one book that I can then take to the next or even one further down the line. But I don’t think a lot ahead. I think that by not planning his future out I have a better chance of keeping him fresh and current and more reflective of the moment.”
Bosch is investigating the shooting murder of a liquor store owner in Nine Dragons. The victim is John Li, the owner of Fortune Fine Foods and Liquors. The apparent motive is robbery, as the cash register has been emptied and the surveillance video removed from the scene. But Bosch begins to wonder about this scenario as more information comes to light indicating that Li apparently refused to pay protection money. Leads point to the involvement of a brutal Chinese gang from the triads. Bosch arrests one of the Chinese couriers, but threats come his way to stop the investigation. He ignores such threats until things become personal for him: his daughter Madeline, living with his ex-wife in Hong Kong, has been kidnapped. Bosch is thrown into action now, and flies to Hong Kong, where he begins to take the hunt for his daughter into his own hands, leaving a trail of dead bodies behind him before he returns to the United States to wrap up the Li murder.
A Kirkus Reviews contributor described this series addition as a “short-story-sized mystery exploded by the triple-sized dose of vigilante justice Bosch gets to dispense as cop and father.” A Publishers Weekly reviewer offered a similar assessment of Nine Dragons, noting: “Tenacious as ever, Bosch is even more formidable in his role as a protective father.” Likewise, Ott, writing in Booklist, described the “nonstop action of the novel’s last half” as the sort of “full-throttle, blood-spattered narrative road race one associates with Lee Child or Stephen Hunter.”
Connelly continues his Bosch series in the 2011 installment, The Drop. This entry finds Harry nearing retirement from the LAPD and eager to take on more cases. He gets his wish one morning when two cases land on his desk. One involves what seems to be a real problem at the crime lab. DNA from a 1989 rape and murder match that of a convicted rapist. The only problem is that the rapist in prison is now twenty-nine, which would make him only eight years old at the time of the other crime. If this DNA evidence has somehow been corrupted, that could lead to numerous cases being overturned. The second case is the apparent suicide of the son of powerful a Los Angeles city councilman. Bosch needs to be sure that the man fell from the seventh floor and was not pushed. Soon these cases lead Bosch into dangerous territory: an unknown killer who has been at work for thirty years and political intrigue and conspiracies that impact the police department.
A Publishers Weekly reviewer felt that “all of Connelly’s considerable strengths are on display” in this “compulsively readable and deeply satisfying” series addition. A Kirkus Reviews contributor offered a more mixed assessment of this novel, calling it “not by a long shot Bosch’s finest hour, but a welcome return to form.”
With the 2012 novel The Black Box, Connelly flashes back to a twenty-year-old cold case: Bosch and his partner, Jerry Edgar, investigate the murder of Danish photo journalist, Anneke Jespersen. They find the woman’s body in an alley in South Central, but the L.A.P.D. doesn’t seem particularly interested in the case. The only evidence is a 9mm shell casing. Flash forward to the present, and that shell casing remains the only evidence. Bosch is working through a series of cold cases when he rediscovers the Jespersen murder, and he decides to send the shell casing for forensic analysis. This leads Bosch down a rabbit hole of internal police politics, and a series of conspiracies and corruptions. According to a Kirkus Reviews critic, the “tension lifts this sturdy but uninspired procedural above most of its competition, though nowhere close to the top of Connelly’s own storied output.” On the other hand, a Publishers Weekly contributor lauded Connelly’s “ability to fashion a complex tapestry of plot” and added that “his ever deepening characterization of Bosch” will be “sure to enthrall fans and newcomers alike.” Ott, writing again in Booklist, was also impressed, asserting: “We like Harry, as we like many other fictional crime solvers, because he never stops, but we love him because he has the scars to prove that never sliding is no easy thing.”
Bosch is paired with a new partner in the 2014 novel The Burning Room to investigate a shooting that takes a decade to turn into murder. Ten years ago, musician Orlando Merced was playing a show in Los Angeles when he was hit by a bullet that lodged in his spine and left him paralyzed. When the bullet finally dislodges and kills Orlando, Bosch tries to find the shooter and bring the person to justice. Bosch and his new partner, “Lucky” Lucy Soto, learn that the case is connected to a mayoral election, which means that the investigation is once again hampered by backroom politics. Bosch may finally be fed up with the LAPD. “Expect Bosch to uncover a nest of vipers as powerful as they are untouchable,” a Kirkus Reviews contributor advised, “but don’t expect him to emerge from his Herculean labors a happy man.” However, Booklist correspondent Ott advised: “By putting the emphasis on the training of a young detective, Connelly shows us a side of Bosch we tend to de-emphasize, stressing instead his maverick attitude and his battles against inner demons.” Commending the novel further in Library Journal, Kristin Centorcelli remarked: “Connelly’s … exceptional gift for crafting an intricate and fascinating procedural hasn’t faded a bit.”
Bosch has retired from the LAPD and gone independent in The Crossing, and his first case includes defense attorney Mickey Haller (the protagonist of Connelly’s “Lincoln Lawyer” series). While Bosch prefers to work for the prosecution, he finds himself working to defend a reformed gang member who has been accused of murder. From what Bosch can tell, his client is guilty, which means that there is not much to investigate. But then police corruption strikes again, and it begins to look like Bosch’s client has been framed. “Bosch may be out to pasture as far as the Los Angeles Police Department is concerned, but Connelly is still very much in his prime as a suspense writer,” Maureen Corrigan declared in her Washington Post assessment. “ The Crossing is a pensive thriller that’s ingeniously constructed and ambitious in scope.” Susan Carr, writing in Xpress Reviews, was equally laudatory, and she announced that The Crossing is “believable and quite satisfying.”
The Lincoln Lawyer, a departure from Bosch, is Connelly’s first legal thriller. The titular character is Michael Haller, a Los Angeles defense attorney (and Bosch’s half-brother) who works from the back seat of his chauffeured Lincoln Town Car. His current client is a wealthy real estate broker who is accused of raping and nearly killing a prostitute; he at first appears innocent, but he has some secrets. Some critics found Haller appealing and his story exciting. The novel, according to San Francisco Chronicle reviewer David Lazarus, has “sharply drawn, engaging characters, snappy dialogue and a plot that moves like a shot of Red Bull.” Noted Seattle Times contributor Adam Woog: “It’s Connelly at the top of his game.”
Connelly continues the “Lincoln Lawyer” series with the publication of The Brass Verdict in 2008. Haller finds his friend Jerry Vincent murdered and suspects that it may have to do with a high-profile case he was investigating about a movie mogul accused of killing his wife. As Haller gets involved, he learns that he may also be the killer’s next target. He pairs up with Bosch, from Connelly’s other series, who is investigating Vincent’s murder, in order to solve the case and possibly save his life. A contributor to Kirkus Reviews commented that “even if the case is less than baffling, Connelly brings his two sleuths together in a way that honors them both.” Booklist reviewer Ott remarked that the author has been “justly celebrated for his characters and his ability to create mood from the sights and sounds of L.A., but he’s also a terrific plotter.” A contributor to Publishers Weekly suggested that Bosch may “have met his match in the wily Haller, and readers will delight in their sparring.” Also remarking on the character pairing, Jennifer Reese, writing in Entertainment Weekly, said of Haller and Bosch that “each uses the tools of his trade, however unconventionally, to find the truth in Connelly’s Los Angeles, where everybody does, indeed, lie.” Writing in Library Journal, Ayers labeled the novel as “one of the best thrillers of the year.”
Defense attorney Mickey Haller once again works with his half-brother Bosch in The Reversal, from 2010. The two team up to work on a cold-case homicide that is a quarter century old. The interesting thing here is that Haller is asked to change desks, acting as prosecutor of the child murderer, Jason Jessup, who has just been released from prison after serving twenty-four years for a conviction now overturned by new DNA evidence. Bosch takes the role of investigator, searching for airtight evidence with which they can reconvict this man who most believe is guilty. This is no easy task, however, as many of the original witnesses are now dead.
Ayers, reviewing The Reversal in Library Journal, felt that it “solidifies [Connelly’s] reputation as the master of the modern crime thriller.” A Publishers Weekly reviewer also had a positive assessment of the work, terming it “engaging.” Further praise for this courtroom drama came from Booklist reviewer Ott, who noted: “Reading this book is like watching a master craftsman, slowly and carefully, brick by brick, build something that holds together exquisitely … in perfect alignment.” Globe and Mail Online reviewer Larry Orenstein added to the positive critical remarks, writing: “Part legal thriller, part police procedural, the entertainment is once again in the details. And as the heat of evil intensifies, you can smell the sulphur in the air.”
In the 2011 novel The Fifth Witness, Haller is defending a single-mom schoolteacher from bank foreclosure of her home. But when the banker dealing with the foreclosure is found murdered, Haller’s client, Lisa Trammel, has more troubles than a foreclosure notice. Now she is accused of the murder, and Haller has his hands full trying to prove her innocence in what is increasingly appearing to be a frame-up. Haller and his team need to find a person with the motive to set Trammel up for such a crime.
Library Journal reviewer Ayers called this story “compelling, intense, and terrifying.” Ayers also termed Connelly the “best legal thriller writer in the business.” Similarly, a Kirkus Reviews contributor felt that the “courtroom scenes—thrust, parry, struggle for every possible advantage—are grueling enough for the most exacting connoisseur of legal intrigue.” Los Angeles Times Online reviewer Richard Rayner also commended Connelly’s treatment of the courtroom and legal aspects of the novel, writing: “About half the novel deals with the murder trial itself, and it’s here that Connelly excels, easily surpassing even John Grisham in the building of courtroom suspense. It’s clear that Connelly just loves this stuff.” And for a Publishers Weekly contributor, the plot of The Fifth Witness is “worthy of a master storyteller.”
At the start of The Gods of Guilt, Haller is at a low point, having lost a race for district attorney and successfully defended a drunk driver who went on to kill two people, a classmate of his daughter’s and the girl’s mother, in a second spree. The bad publicity has stalled his career and damaged his relationship with his daughter, but Haller thinks his luck may be changing when a promising case comes his way—a lucrative murder defense. But Haller soon finds himself in danger, as the victim, Gloria Dayton, was a former client whom he believes was killed because of her knowledge of a Mexican drug cartel and Drug Enforcement Agency dealings. Worse, Haller wonders whether he may have been responsible for endangering her, when he thought he was helping her turn her life around. While Haller attempts to navigate the perilous waters of the case, readers learn more about his relationships past and present.
Reviewers lauded the latest installment in the “Lincoln Lawyer” series as another example of Connelly’s mastery. “It’s remarkable that Connelly, after creating perhaps the finest American police series, could, in 2005 at age 49, abruptly shift gears and launch an equally excellent and arguably more entertaining series about a criminal defense lawyer,” observed Anderson in another review for Washington Post Book World. “Both Bosch and Haller rank among the great characters in American crime fiction. … Thanks to Mickey’s complexities, the Lincoln Lawyer series keeps getting better. I think this is the best one yet, but admittedly, I’ve thought that about them all.”
“Mr. Connelly writes courtroom drama as a changeable set of circumstances, so that Mickey’s role as manipulator is at least as important as his detecting,” stated Janet Maslin in the New York Times Book Review. “In this book, he does a very satisfying job of feinting about what he’s truly after until he leaves his real target wholly unprotected, and the maneuvering is masterly. And potentially very cinematic. Mr. Connelly may not be a perfect wordsmith, but he brings down the hammer of justice with unequivocal power.”
Booklist contributor Ott characterizerd The Gods of Guilt as “a gripping novel, both in the courtroom and outside of it, and a testament to the melancholy maturing of Mickey Haller.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor offered a rare critical review, calling the novel “not much of a thriller or a mystery, but illuminating about the ways in which the law works and doesn’t.” Noting that in this volume “the tone is darker and more revealing of the world in which Mickey lives,” Huffington Post reviewer Jackie K. Cooper asserted: “There has never been a bad Michael Connelly book. … The Gods of Guilt continues his winning streak and that is good news for Michael Connelly fans.”
In The Poet, Connelly temporarily parted company with Bosch. This novel’s protagonist is crime reporter Jack McEvoy, whose twin brother, a homicide detective, has apparently committed suicide. The brother, however, is in fact the victim of a fiendishly clever serial killer who has dispatched a half dozen other homicide detectives in various states, and who leaves clues, in the form of quotations from Edgar Allan Poe, at each death site. McEvoy pursues the case for personal and professional reasons, and he worms his way into the FBI’s investigation. “The F.B.I. bureaucracy is rendered with an expert eye,” commented Los Angeles Times Book Review contributor Truscott. Among the suspects is a serial killer named Gladden who, according to Truscott, “makes Hannibal Lecter look like a child-care worker,” but who is not the killer of the cops.
Several critics found the novel to be a worthy effort. Dick Adler, writing in Chicago Tribune Books, welcomed the change of pace from Bosch, commenting: “Each quote from Poe left by the killer cuts to the bone, revealing the true psychosis of the poet and the killer.” Stasio, despite finding peripheral aspects of the plot implausible (such as the romantic subplot and the ease with which McEvoy joins the investigation), remarked: “The villain’s flamboyant character may be unbelievable, but his methods of killing and eluding detection are infernally ingenious, adding an intellectual charge to the visceral kick of the hunt.” Truscott remarked that “talent like this is rare and delicious,” and he added: “This guy writes commercial fiction so well, he’s going to end up on the ‘literature’ shelves along with Poe if he plays his cards right.”
With Blood Work Connelly again temporarily parts ways with Bosch; this story centers on retired FBI agent Terrell “Terry” McCaleb, who had specialized in tracking down Los Angeles-area serial killers. Suffering from cardiac problems, McCaleb has endured an agonizing two-year wait before finally receiving a heart transplant. McCaleb is under doctor’s orders to avoid stress, particularly the anxiety-laden investigations that precipitated his heart problems. He is puttering around on his houseboat in San Pedro’s harbor, preparing for a trip to his boyhood home on Catalina Island, when his life is thrown into turmoil. The attractive Graciella Rivers steps aboard his boat and asks him to investigate the murder of her sister, Gloria, which the LAPD has placed on back-burner status as a convenience-store robbery gone wrong. McCaleb gives her a flat “no” response, until she drops her bombshell—Gloria was the heart donor who saved McCaleb’s life. Against medical advice, sans license, and with little help from the police, McCaleb studies the evidence and determines there is a second murder linked to Gloria’s. Moreover, he learns there were “souvenirs” taken from both victims, a surprise tip-off that he is on the trail of a serial killer. In ensuing twists, McCaleb is nearly indicted as the murderer, and an intimate connection between hunter and hunted is revealed.
Booklist contributor Gaughan found Blood Work “solid entertainment but not up to Connelly’s last two novels: The Poet (1996) and the superb Trunk Music (1997),” and stated: “Frankly, many readers will see the shattering truth coming a long time before the sleuth does.” A Publishers Weekly critic praised Blood Work as “a tautly paced, seductively involving thriller. … Working with seemingly shopworn material, Connelly produces fresh twists and turns, and, as usual, packs his plot with believable, logical surprises.” Similarly, Rebecca House Stankowski in the Library Journal stated: “High suspense, masterful plotting, and smart prose make this a superior thriller.” Pam Lambert in People lauded Connelly for “the sharp eye of the Los Angeles reporter he used to be and the power of the evermore stylish writer he is becoming with each outing.”
In the stand-alone novel Void Moon, the protagonist is crack burglar and ex-con Cassie Black, who has sustained herself though her six-year prison stretch with dreams of one last big score. When she was a child, Cassie’s father abandoned her family for the Las Vegas casinos. Max, Cassie’s lover, died plunging from a casino penthouse through a glass ceiling while they were attempting to rob a rich high roller. Due to a twist of Nevada law, she found herself charged with manslaughter in Max’s deadly accident. Now free and trying to go straight while dealing with her tormented past, she eventually succumbs to the temptation of trying to get payback for Max’s death by robbing another high roller at the casino where Max died. But her intended victim turns out to be a bagman for the Chicago mob who was carrying the 2.5-million-dollar down payment for the Cleopatra Casino, and Cassie finds herself hunted by Jack Karsh, a highly skilled and techno-savvy private eye working for the casino. Cassie has a secret she will do anything to protect, while the brutal, psychopathic Karsh leaves no witnesses alive. A stolen child is instrumental in their showdown, which results in an unexpected and unabashed tear-jerker of an ending.
Void Moon found favor with numerous reviewers. A New York Times Book Review critic observed: “Connelly makes shrewd work of the manhunt, cranking up the suspense to keep Cassie a whisker ahead of her pursuer.” Library Journal contributor Jeff Ayers remarked: “Connelly has written his best book to date … [a] fastpaced thriller. … In astrology, a void moon is considered bad luck, but Connelly’s Void Moon is better than a four-leaf clover.” Gaughan and Gilbert Taylor, writing in Booklist, deemed Cassie to be “a wonderfully engaging character” and Jack Karsh a “chilling sicko,” while “Casino boss Victor Grimaldi is spectacularly reptilian” and the “lesser characters are finely drawn, too.” Regarding the details of casinos’ security systems and “Cassie’s criminal tradecraft,” Gaughan and Taylor noted: “Connelly really does his homework.” The critics’ final assessment was highly laudatory: “The pacing of this thriller is as good as you’ll find in the genre. Void Moon offers readers a full house of entertainment.”
Chasing the Dime, published in 2002, is another nonseries novel. Its main character, computer scientist Henry Pierce, finds that his new phone number used to belong to a prostitute, Lilly, who marketed her services on the Internet. She has disappeared, and Henry suspects she was murdered. He becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to her, motivated in part by guilt over having been unable to prevent the death of his drug-addict sister. Some reviewers praised Connelly’s new protagonist and his exploration of an underworld gone high-tech. “Technology has not, we learn, made that world any less gentle, or any easier to get out of alive,” related Jesse Sublett in the Austin Chronicle. Cindy Lynn Speer, writing in Mostly Fiction, considered Henry and the never-seen Lilly both “strong and interesting” characters and commented that “Connelly takes an entirely innovative idea and runs with it, creating a story that is hard to put down.” Washington Post contributor Patrick Anderson, however, an admirer of many of Connelly’s novels, deemed Chasing the Dime “surely his weakest.” The book, Anderson continued, “has some nice moments. But at best it’s slick entertainment, and at worst it’s silly.”
Connelly returns to the protagonist from his award-winning The Poet for his 2009 stand-alone novel The Scarecrow. Jack McEvoy has been laid off from his job at the Los Angeles Times and decides to write a final story as a way to screw over the people he feels did him wrong or otherwise just deserve it. Mary Melton, writing in Los Angeles, called the novel’s plot “ridiculous” and opined that the characters are missing “the ‘breadth and depth’ that McEvoy” espouses. Melton retreated from being fully critical, however, by calling the novel “a page-turner.”
In 2009 Connelly also edited In the Shadow of the Master: Classic Tales, written by Edgar Allan Poe and illustrated by Harry Clarke. The collection of Poe’s shorter works marks the 200th anniversary of his birth and includes commentary from a range of authors on each story. Booklist contributor Allison Block found the book to be a “compulsively readable collection,” and a reviewer for Publishers Weekly acknowledged that the contributors Connelly chose to write the afterwords are all “distinguished.”
The Late Show introduces a new character to Connelly’s roster of beleaguered law enforcement professionals. Police officer Renee Ballard has been reassigned to the graveyard shift. The novel’s title is police slang for the nighttime tour or duty, where officers routinely start investigations only to hand them over to other officers when daylight comes. Renee finds herself in this situation after an unsuccessful sexual harassment suit against former supervisor, Lieutenant Robert Olivas. Worse, her claims may have been genuine, but her partner at the time, Detective Ken Chastain, refused to back her up. Now, Renee works at night and makes the best of her situation.
As a Los Angeles cop, Ballard is no stranger to violence, but two new cases are destined to change her professionally and personally. The first involves the brutal beating of a transsexual prostitute known as Ramona Ramone, born Ramon Gutierrez. The second centers on a fatal shooting at a nightclub called Dancers, where five people have been shot to death. Three of the victims are known criminals—a bookie, a drug dealer, and a member of the mob. However, another victim is Cynthia Haddel, a young woman who worked at the club and who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. When the case falls under the jurisdiction of Olivas, Ballard has to give up the investigation, at least openly. She continues working the case, however, without the knowledge of her supervisors or her partner, Detective John Jenkins.
“Few authors, if any, know more about drawing readers into a new series than Connelly, and he does so in spades this time around,” commented BookPage contributor Bruce Tierney. Bill Ott, writing in Booklist, observed, “Many established crime writers . . . have launched new series as their signature heroes age, but few have done it as successfully as Connelly.”
In assessing The Late Show, a Kirkus Reviews writer commented: “More perhaps than any of Connelly’s much-honored other titles, this one reveals why his procedures are the most soulful in the business: because he finds the soul in the smallest procedural details, faithfully executed.”
The Wrong Side of Goodbye, Connelly’s 2016 Bosch novel, finds Bosch once again out of the LAPD, following a bitter exit and a lawsuit he brought against the department. Now working as a private investigator, he is approached by an elderly but very wealthy man who has a special case for hire. The man, billionaire engineering mogul Whitney Vance, believes he is dying. However, he has no known heirs. He wants to hire Bosch to find a possible heir, the child of Vibiana Duarte, a Mexican woman he had a fling with when he was a student at the University of Southern California. When Vibiana got pregnant, she disappeared from Vance’s life, and he needs to know if she had her child, if the child is still alive, and where his offspring can be found. Further, the investigation must be conducted in total secrecy to prevent anyone around Vance from finding out if he has an heir to his massive fortune. Meanwhile, Bosch also has to investigate a series of serial rapes committed by someone nicknamed the Screen Cutter for his knack of getting access to homes by cutting window screens. The Screen Cutter also has the peculiar habit of accosting his victims when they are at the most fertile point of their menstrual cycle. After securing some promising leads in finding Vance’s child, the trail goes cold, Vance stops answering his private phone number, and others interested in Vance’s billions raise the stakes.
“Connelly continues to discover new depths to his character and new stories to tell that reveal those depths in always compelling ways,” Ott remarked in another Booklist review. “The classic mystery plotting and streamlined storytelling are what render him so readable. Of all the big-name writers who dominate this genre, Mr. Connelly is the most solid, old-school pro,” commented Janet Maslin, writing in the New York Times Book Review.
While reviewing The Wrong Side of Goodbye, Washington Post contributor Maureen Corrigan observed: “This latest Bosch outing is its own accomplishment: brooding and intricate, suspenseful and sad. In short, it’s another terrific Michael Connelly mystery.”
In an interview on the Michael Connelly Website, the author offered some musings on the Harry Bosch novels and on the writer’s life. He pointed out that Bosch is not based on any particular police officer or detective. “He is an amalgamation of several real cops I knew as a police reporter, plus aspects of fictional detectives—from both books and movies—that I have loved,” Connelly remarked. Bosch is also not intended to mirror Connelly’s own personality. However, “Over the course of the books I have written with him, though, I think that my “world view” and his are becoming more closely aligned. This probably was inevitable. The more you write about a character, the more you look inside for attributes and thoughts to give him,” Connelly stated.
As for the future of Bosch the character and Connelly the writer, Connelly noted on his website, “I want to grow as a writer and get better. I want to keep the Harry Bosch series fresh and alive. I want to keep filling in the portrait of Bosch so that when I am done with him he is a fully realized and understood human being, a person that the readers who have gone the distance with him know like a brother.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Africa News Service, November 28, 2005, review of The Lincoln Lawyer.
Armchair Detective, winter, 1994, review of The Black Echo, p. 56; summer, 1995, review of The Concrete Blonde, p. 307; summer, 1996, review of The Last Coyote, p. 280; winter, 1996, review of The Poet, p. 119.
Austin Chronicle (Austin, TX), October 18, 2002, Jesse Sublett, review of Chasing the Dime.
Battalion (College Station, TX), September 4, 2007, review of Echo Park.
Booklist, April 1, 1993, Wes Lukowsky, review of The Black Ice, p. 1413; June 1, 1995, Wes Lukowsky, review of The Last Coyote, p. 1733; October 1, 1996, Thomas Gaughan, review of Trunk Music, p. 290; January 1, 1998, Thomas Gaughan, review of Blood Work, p. 742, and Bill Ott, review of The Poet, p. 783; October 15, 1998, Thomas Gaughan, review of Angels Flight, p. 371; October 1, 1999, Thomas Gaughan and Gilbert Taylor, review of Void Moon, p. 308; September 1, 2001, Mary McCay, review of A Darkness More than Night, p. 128; May 1, 2004, Bill Ott, review of The Narrows, p. 1502; February 15, 2005, Mary Frances Wilkins, review of The International Association of Crime Writers Presents Murder in Vegas: New Crime Tales of Gambling and Desperation, p. 1065; September 1, 2005, Allison Block, review of The Lincoln Lawyer, p. 6; April 1, 2006, Connie Fletcher, review of Crime Beat: A Decade of Covering Cops and Killers, p. 4; August 1, 2006, Bill Ott, review of Echo Park, p. 6; April 1, 2007, Bill Ott, review of The Overlook, p. 5; August 1, 2008, Bill Ott, review of The Brass Verdict, p. 5; December 1, 2008, Allison Block, review of In the Shadow of the Master: Classic Tales, p. 30; September 15, 2009, Bill Ott, review of Nine Dragons, p. 6; July 1, 2010, Bill Ott, review of The Reversal, p. 9; September 15, 2012, Bill Ott, review of The Black Box; October 15, 2013, Bill Ott, review of The Gods of Guilt, p. 19; October 1, 2014, Bill Ott, review of The Burning Room; October, 2016, Bill Ott, review of The Wrong Side of Goodbye, p. 21; June, 2017, Bill Ott, review of The Late Show, p. 60.
BookPage, August 1, 2017, Bruce Tierney, “A Red-Eye Investigation,” review of The Late Show, p. 6.
Bookseller, October 14, 2005, review of The Lincoln Lawyer, p. 10; February 10, 2006, “Witnessing Hell: Michael Connelly, Creator of Detective Harry Bosch, Tells about His First Encounter with Murder—at the Age of 16,” p. 21; June 8, 2007, review of The Overlook, p. 12; June 22, 2007, review of The Overlook, p. 13.
Boston Globe, November 16, 2006, Sam Allis, “Bosch Is Back, but Sleuth’s Best Days May Be behind Him,” p. B19.
Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, October 13, 2005, Bruce DeSilva, review of The Lincoln Lawyer, p. 2.
Daily Variety, January 5, 2007, “Michael Connelly,” p. 12.
Detroit Free Press, October 13, 2002, review of Chasing the Dime, p. 4E; April 13, 2003, review of Lost Light, p. 4E.
Drood Review of Mystery, November, 2000, review of Void Moon, p. 13, and review of A Darkness More than Night, p. 13; May, 2002, review of City of Bones, p. 1.
Entertainment Weekly, February 4, 2000, Charles Winecoff, review of Void Moon, p. 66; February 9, 2001, review of A Darkness More than Night, p. 71; May 20, 2005, Jennifer Reese, review of The Closers, p. 81; September 30, 2005, Thom Geier, review of The Lincoln Lawyer, p. 97; May 12, 2006, Clark Collis, review of Crime Beat, p. 85; May 25, 2007, Karen Valby, review of The Overlook, p. 87; October 17, 2008, Jennifer Reese, review of The Brass Verdict, p. 102.
Esquire, January, 1999, review of Angels Flight, p. 18; February, 2001, review of A Darkness More than Night, p. 38.
Federal Lawyer, June, 2007, Arthur L. Rizer, review of The Lincoln Lawyer, p. 59.
Globe & Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), January 13, 2001, review of A Darkness More than Night, p. D13; April 27, 2002, review of City of Bones, p. D30; October 26, 2002, review of Chasing the Dime; November 1, 2008, Jeffrey Miller, review of The Brass Verdict, p. D10.
Kirkus Reviews, November 1, 1991, review of The Black Echo, p. 1360; March 15, 1993, review of The Black Ice, p. 318; April 1, 1994, review of The Concrete Blonde, p. 414; March 15, 1995, review of The Last Coyote, p. 328; November 1, 1999, review of Void Moon, p. 1663; October 1, 2000, review of A Darkness More than Night, p. 1374; February 15, 2005, review of New Crime Tales of Gambling and Desperation, p. 199; August 1, 2005, review of The Lincoln Lawyer, p. 803; June 1, 2006, review of Echo Park, p. 533; April 15, 2007, review of The Overlook; August 15, 2008, review of The Brass Verdict; October 15, 2009, review of Nine Dragons; February 1, 2011, review of The Fifth Witness; October 15, 2011, review of The Drop; October 15, 2012, review of The Black Box; October 15, 2013, Bill Ott, review of The Gods of Guilt, p. 19; October 15, 2014, review of The Burning Room; October 15, 2016, review of The Wrong Side of Goodbye; July 1, 2017, review of The Late Show.
Library Journal, October 1, 1996, Rex E. Klett, review of Trunk Music, p. 130; March 15, 1998, Rebecca House Stankowski, review of Blood Work, p. 91; July, 1998, Joanna M. Burkhardt, review of Blood Work, p. 152; November 15, 1998, Rebecca House Stankowski, review of Angels Flight, p. 95; March 15, 1999, Michael Adams, review of Angels Flight, p. 128; October 15, 1999, Jeff Ayers, review of Void Moon, p. 104; November 1, 2000, Patrick J. Wall, review of A Darkness More than Night, p. 132; April 15, 2005, Jeff Ayers, review of The Closers, p. 71; October 1, 2005, Jeff Ayers, review of The Lincoln Lawyer, p. 64; October 1, 2005, “Michael Connelly,” p. 66; April 15, 2006, Deirdre Root, review of Crime Beat, p. 91; October 15, 2006, Elizabeth B. Lindsay, review of Echo Park, p. 57; September 1, 2008, Jeff Ayers, review of The Brass Verdict, p. 114; September 1, 2010, Jeff Ayers, review of The Reversal, p. 98; February 15, 2011, Jeff Ayers, review of The Fifth Witness, p. 99; October 1, 2014, Kristin Centorcelli, review of The Burning Room.
Los Angeles, May 1, 2009, Mary Melton, review of The Scarecrow, p. 78.
Los Angeles Times, October 18, 2006, August Brown, “Inside Investigation: In the New Echo Park, Michael Connelly Probes Harry Bosch’s Mind and Takes Another Look at a Part of L.A.,” p. E3; July 21, 2017, Paula L. Woods, Michael Connelly Starts a New Thread with The Late Show,” review of The Late Show.
Los Angeles Times Book Review, September 12, 1993, Charles Champlin, review of The Black Ice, p. 8; July 10, 1994, Charles Champlin, review of The Concrete Blonde, p. 8; February 18, 1996, Lucian Truscott IV, review of The Poet, p. 4; April 20, 1997, review of Trunk Music, p. 13; December 2, 2001, review of A Darkness More than Night, p. 28; November 17, 2002, review of Chasing the Dime, p. R2; August 24, 2003, review of Lost Light, p. R16.
Maine Bar Journal, winter, 2006, Alan R. Nye, review of The Lincoln Lawyer, p. 43.
Miami Herald, May 18, 2005, Connie Ogle, review of The Closers; May 24, 2006, “Michael Connelly’s Crime Reporting Doesn’t Match Up to His Formidable Power with Fiction.”
Midwest Book Review, May, 2005, Harriet Klausner, review of The Closers.
New Jersey Law Journal, November 28, 2005, Patricia Paine, review of The Lincoln Lawyer.
Newsweek, April 13, 1998, Malcolm Jones, Jr., review of Blood Work, p. 77; February 1, 1999, Katrine Ames, review of Angels Flight, p. 66.
New Yorker, February 5, 2001, Joyce Carol Oates, review of A Darkness More than Night, p. 88.
New York Times, May 16, 2005, Janet Maslin, “Taking Care of Business That’s Never Finished,” p. E6; October 16, 2006, Janet Maslin, “Imagine If This Guy Really Existed,” p. E1.
New York Times Book Review, January 19, 1992, Marilyn Stasio, review of The Black Echo, p. 20; June 12, 1994, Marilyn Stasio, review of The Concrete Blonde, p. 42; January 5, 1997, Marilyn Stasio, review of Trunk Music, p. 20; April 5, 1998, Marilyn Stasio, review of Blood Work, p. 32; January 24, 1999, Marilyn Stasio, review of Angels Flight, p. 24; January 9, 2000, Marilyn Stasio, review of Void Moon, p. 24; June 2, 2002, review of City of Bones, p. 29; October 6, 2002, Marilyn Stasio, review of Chasing the Dime, p. 32; May 7, 2006, Charles Taylor, “Death on Deadline,” p. 31; November 5, 2006, Marilyn Stasio, review of Echo Park, p. 25; October 13, 2008, Janet Maslin, review of The Brass Verdict, p. C1; December 8, 2013, Janet Maslin, review of The Gods of Guilt; November 10, 2016, Janet Maslin, “Review: Michael Connelly’s The Wrong Side of Goodbye, a Mystery Traveling the Freeways,” review of The Wrong Side of Goodbye.
Observer (London, England), February 4, 2001, review of A Darkness More than Night, p. 17; December 29, 2002, review of Chasing the Dime, p. 16.
People, February 3, 1997, Pam Lambert, review of Trunk Music, p. 33; March 9, 1998, Pam Lambert, review of Blood Work, p. 39; February 1, 1999, Pam Lambert, review of Angels Flight, p. 41; May 24, 2004, Sean Daly, review of The Narrows, p. 47.
Publishers Weekly, February 2, 1998, review of Blood Work, p. 80; November 2, 1998, review of Angels Flight, p. 73; October 23, 2000, review of A Darkness More than Night, p. 56; April 12, 2004, review of The Narrows, p. 38; April 4, 2005, review of The Closers, p. 40; September 5, 2005, review of The Lincoln Lawyer, p. 36; March 13, 2006, review of Crime Beat, p. 54; September 4, 2006, review of Echo Park, p. 41; April 2, 2007, review of The Overlook, p. 40; August 18, 2008, review of The Brass Verdict, p. 38; November 3, 2008, review of In the Shadow of the Master, p. 42; September 21, 2009, review of Nine Dragons, p. 38; August 23, 2010, review of The Reversal, p. 26; February 7, 2011, review of The Fifth Witness, p. 34; September 26, 2011, review of The Drop, p. 48; September 17, 2012, review of The Black Box; October 3, 2016, review of The Wrong Side of Goodbye, p. 100.
Rapport: The Modern Guide to Books, Music & More, 1992, review of The Black Echo, p. 19.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 5, 2005, review of The Closers, p. F8.
St. Petersburg Times (St. Petersburg, FL), October 9, 2005, Jean Heller, “Connelly Detour Worth Taking,” p. P6; October 25, 2007, Colette Bancroft, “A Life of Crime Writing,” p. E1.
San Francisco Chronicle, October 2, 2005, David Lazarus, “Lawyer Defends a Man He Knows Is Guilty as Sin,” p. F6.
San Jose Mercury News, November 1, 2006, “Echo Park: A Cop’s Obsession to Find Killer.”
School Library Journal, July, 1992, Debbie Hyman, review of The Black Echo, p. 97; June, 2001, Carol DeAngelo, review of A Darkness More than Night, p. 183.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 5, 2007, Jeff Ayers, “Connelly Finds Writing Short Is Not So Sweet,” p. C1.
Seattle Times, October 5, 2005, Adam Woog, “A Backseat Attorney in a Top-Notch Mystery,” p. F1.
Spectator, March 8, 1997, Michael Carlson, review of Trunk Music, p. 37.
Star Tribune November 16, 2013, Rochelle Olson, interview with Connelly.
Sun-Sentinel (Ft. Lauderdale, FL), May 18, 2005, Oline H. Cogdill, “The Closers: Veteran Cop Back, Taking on Old Cases”; May 31, 2006, Oline H. Cogdill, “The Genesis of a Top Crime Writer”; October 4, 2006, Oline H. Cogdill, review of Echo Park.
Swiss News, January, 2006, review of The Closers, p. 60.
Times Union, February 18, 2007, “‘Echo’ Thriller Rings True.”
Trial, May, 2006, Carmel Sileo, review of The Lincoln Lawyer, p. 80.
Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), August 7, 1994, Gary Dretzka, review of The Concrete Blonde, p. 7; January 7, 1996, Dick Adler, review of The Poet, p. 6; January 5, 1997, review of Trunk Music, p. 4; May 5, 2002, review of City of Bones, p. 2; May 23, 2004, Dick Adler, review of The Narrows, p. 2; July 2, 2006, Dick Adler, review of Crime Beat, p. 8; October 22, 2006, Dick Adler, review of Echo Park, p. 10; June 2, 2007, Kristin Kloberdanz, review of The Overlook, p. 9.
USA Today, October 4, 2005, Deirdre Donahue, “‘Lincoln’ Navigates Crime Curves at Breakneck Speed,” p. D6.
Voice of Youth Advocates, December, 1998, review of Blood Work, p. 332.
Wall Street Journal, February 5, 1997, Tom Nolan, review of Trunk Music, p. A16; March 18, 1998, Tom Nolan, review of Blood Work, p. A20; February 1, 1999, review of Angels Flight, p. A19; October 29, 2002, review of Chasing the Dime, p. D6; April 4, 2006, Tom Nolan, “Connelly’s Hieronymous Bosch Moonlights—in Other Authors’ Books,” p. D8; October 24, 2008, Tom Nolan, review of The Brass Verdict, p. A17; May 21, 2009, Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, author interview.
Washington Lawyer, January, 2006, Ronald Goldfarb, review of The Lincoln Lawyer, p. 40.
Washington Post, October 28, 2002, Patrick Anderson, “Alas, No Bosch about It,” p. C2; October 30, 2015, Maureen Corrigan, review of The Crossing; October 31, 2016, Maureen Corrigan, “Bosch is Back in Michael Connelly’s Masterful The Wrong Side of Goodbye,” review of The Wrong Side of Goodbye.
Washington Post Book World, March 22, 1992, review of The Black Echo, p. 10; August 21, 1994, review of The Concrete Blonde, p. 6; March 22, 1998, review of Blood Work, p. 6; January 31, 1999, review of Angels Flight, p. 10; February 27, 2000, review of Void Moon, p. 4; April 28, 2002, review of City of Bones, p. 13; November 19, 2006, Kevin Allman, “Fatal Distraction,” p. 6; October 12, 2008, Jonathan Yardley, review of The Brass Verdict, p. 15; December 1, 2013, Patrick Anderson, review of The Gods of Guilt.
Weekly Standard, December 12, 2005, Jon L. Breen, review of The Lincoln Lawyer.
Writer’s Digest, December, 2005, “Criminal Mastermind,” p. 42.
Xpress Reviews, October 9, 2015, Susan Carr, review of The Crossing.
ONLINE
Best Reviews, http://thebestreviews.com/ (March 20, 2002), Harriet Klausner, review of City of Bones; (March 4, 2003), Harriet Klausner, review of Lost Light; (September 15, 2005), Harriet Klausner, review of The Lincoln Lawyer.
Blogcritics, http://blogcritics.org/ (May 21, 2007), Scott Butki, author interview.
Blogger News Network, http://www.bloggernews.net/ (May 9, 2009), Kevin R. Tipple, review of The Overlook.
Bookreporter.com, http://www.bookreporter.com/ (January 6, 2008), Joe Hartlaub, review of Lost Light; Kate Ayers, review of Echo Park.
BookReview.com, http://www.bookreview.com/ (January 6, 2008), Harriet Klausner, review of A Darkness More than Night; Harriet Klausner, review of Chasing the Dime.
Book Standard, http://www.thebookstandard.com/ (October 3, 2005), Anna Weinberg, “Anatomy of a Buzz: Michael Connelly’s ‘Lincoln Lawyer.’”
Casa Mysterioso, http://www.casamysterioso.com/ (October 15, 2006), Harriet Klausner, review of Echo Park.
Chicago Sun-Times Online, http://www.suntimes.com/ (April 7, 2011), Paul Saltzman, review of The Fifth Witness.
CNN Money, http://money.cnn.com/ (April 6, 2011), Amy Haimerl, “The Lincoln Lawyer Is Back—and Fighting Foreclosures.”
Columbus Dispatch Web site, http://www.dispatch.com/ (August 27, 2006), Karen Angel, “Novelist Probes Dark Side through Detective, Lawyer.”
Consumer Help Web, http://book.consumerhelpweb.com/ (January 6, 2008), Bridgette Redman, interview with Michael Connelly.
Court TV News, http://www.courttv.com/ (May 3, 2006), “A Conversation with Writer Michael Connelly.”
Curled Up with a Good Book, http://www.curledup.com/ (January 6, 2008), Luan Gaines, review of Lost Light; Bobby Blades, review of The Lincoln Lawyer; Bobby Blades, review of The Overlook; Luan Gaines, review of The Overlook; Bobby Blades, review of Crime Beat.
Entertainment World, http://www.entertainmentworld.us/ (January 6, 2008), Walter Reichert, “10 Questions with Michael Connelly.”
Futures Mystery Anthology, http://www.fmam.biz/ (December 28, 2011), Harriet Klausner, review of The Overlook.
Gainesville.com, http://www.gainesville.com/ (January 26, 2007), Gary Kirkland, “Connelly’s Path to Success Started at the Reitz Union”; (May 20, 2007), Gary Kirkland, “Author Michael Connelly Challenges Himself by Shaking Things Up.”
Globe and Mail Online, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/ (October 14, 2010), Larry Orenstein, review of The Reversal.
House of Crime and Mystery, http://houseofcrimeandmystery.blogspot.com/ (December 28, 2011), interview with Michael Connelly, and review of The Fifth Witness.
Houston Chronicle Online, http://www.chron.com/ (April 3, 2011), Maggie Galehouse, “Author’s Ex-Job on Crime Beat Provides Hollywood Inspiration.”
Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ (December 13, 2013), Jackie K. Cooper, review of The Gods of Guilt.
Internet Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com/ (November 10, 2011), author profile.
Irresistible Targets, http://irresistibletargets.blogspot.com/ (May 14, 2009), Michael Carlson, author interview.
January, http://www.januarymagazine.com/ (April 30, 2003), David Montgomery, “Act of Devotion.”
Los Angeles Times Online, http://articles.latimes.com/ (April 5, 2011), Richard Rayner, review of The Fifth Witness.
M/C Reviews, http://reviews.media-culture.org.au/ (July 31, 2006), Doug Perrers, review of The Overlook.
Michael Connelly Website, http://www.michaelconnelly.com (September 16, 2017).
Mostly Fiction, http://mostlyfiction.com/ (September 9, 2002), Cindy Lynn Speer, review of Chasing the Dime; (March 31, 2005), Chuck Barksdale, review of Lost Light.
News Real Blog, http://www.newsrealblog.com/ (October 2, 2010), Elise Cooper, review of The Reversal.
New Zealand Listener, http://www.listener.co.nz/ (May 7, 2011), Craig Sisterson, “Michael Connelly Interview.”
Parade, http://parade.com/ (March 11, 2016), Paulette Cohn, “Bestselling Author Michael Connelly on Taking Harry Bosch from Books to TV.”
Rap Sheet, http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/ (July 11, 2007), Ali Karim, “Not One to Be Overlooked.”
RT Book Reviews, http://www.rtbookreviews.com/ (January 6, 2008), Diane Snyder, review of Lost Light; Liz French, review of Echo Park.
TIRBD (Things I’d Rather Be Doing), http://www.tirbd.com/ (May 21, 2007), author interview.*
Michael Connelly
MConnelly.jpg
Connelly in 2010
Born July 21, 1956 (age 61)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Occupation Novelist
Nationality American
Genre Crime fiction, thriller
Spouse Linda McCaleb
Website
michaelconnelly.com
Michael Connelly (born July 21, 1956[1]) is an American author of detective novels and other crime fiction, notably those featuring LAPD Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch and criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller. His books, which have been translated into 39 languages,[2] have garnered him many awards.[3] Connelly was the President of the Mystery Writers of America from 2003 to 2004.[2]
Contents [hide]
1 Early life
2 Early career
3 Full-time novelist
4 Film and television
5 Awards and honors
6 Writing techniques
7 Recurring characters
7.1 Main characters
7.2 Other characters
8 Works
8.1 Novels
8.1.1 Editor
8.2 Short stories
8.3 Short story collections
8.4 Non-fiction books
8.5 Filmography
8.5.1 Television
8.5.2 Features
9 References
10 External links
Early life[edit]
Connelly was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the second oldest child of W. Michael Connelly, a property developer, and Mary Connelly, a homemaker.[4] According to Connelly, his father was a frustrated artist who encouraged his children to want to succeed in life[5] and was a risk taker who alternated success with failure in his pursuit of a career. Connelly's mother was a fan of crime fiction and introduced her son to the world of mystery novels.[4]
At age 12, Connelly moved with his family from Philadelphia to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he attended St. Thomas Aquinas High School. At age 16, Connelly’s interest in crime and mystery escalated when, on his way home from his work as a hotel dishwasher, he witnessed a man throw an object into a hedge. Connelly, curious, decided to investigate and found that the object was a gun wrapped in a lumberjack shirt. After putting the gun back, he followed the man to a bar and then left to go home to tell his father. Later that night, Connelly brought the police down to the bar, but the man was already gone. This event introduced Connelly to the world of police officers and their lives, impressing him with the investigators’ hard faces and the way they worked.[4]
Connelly had planned on following his father’s early choice of career in building construction and started out at the University of Florida in Gainesville as a building construction major. After earning grades that were lower than expected, Connelly went to see Robert Altman’s film The Long Goodbye (1973) and was enchanted by what he saw. The film, based on Raymond Chandler’s 1953 novel of the same name, inspired Connelly to want to become a mystery writer. Connelly went home and read all of Chandler's works featuring Philip Marlowe, a detective in Los Angeles during the 1940s and ‘50s, and decided to switch majors to journalism with a minor in creative writing.[4] He was a student of Harry Crews.
Early career[edit]
After graduating from the University of Florida in 1980, Connelly got a job as a crime beat writer at the Daytona Beach News Journal, where he worked for almost two years until he got a job at the Fort Lauderdale News and Sun-Sentinel in 1981. There, he covered the crime beat during the South Florida cocaine wars, an era that brought with it much violence and murder.[2] He stayed with the paper for a few years and in 1986, he and two other reporters spent several months interviewing survivors of the 1985 Delta Flight 191 plane crash, which story earned Connelly a place as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.[6] The honor also brought Connelly a job as a crime reporter at the Los Angeles Times. He moved to California in 1987 with his wife Linda McCaleb, whom he met while in college and married in April 1984.[4]
After moving to Los Angeles, Connelly went to see the High Tower Apartments where Raymond Chandler's famous character, Philip Marlowe, had lived (in The High Window (1942)), and Robert Altman had filmed.[when?] Connelly got the manager of the building to promise to phone him if the apartment ever became available. Ten years later, the manager tracked Connelly down, and Connelly decided to rent the place. This apartment served as a place to write for several years, but its value derived more from nostalgia than comfort (for example, the apartment lacked air conditioning).[5][7]
After three years at the Los Angeles Times, Connelly wrote his first published novel, The Black Echo (1992), after previously writing two unfinished novels that he had not attempted to get published.[5] He sold The Black Echo to Little, Brown to be published in 1992 and won the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award for best first novel.[6] The book is partly based on a true crime and is the first one featuring Connelly's primary recurring character, Los Angeles Police Department Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch,[2] a man who, according to Connelly, shares few similarities with the author himself.[5] Connelly named Bosch after the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch, known for his paintings full of sin and redemption, such as the painting Hell, a copy of which hangs on the office wall behind Connelly’s computer.[3][4] Connelly describes his own work as a big canvas with all the characters of his books floating across it as currents on a painting. Sometimes they are bound to collide, creating cross currents. This is something that Connelly creates by bringing back characters from previous books and letting them play a part in books written five or six years after first being introduced.[4]
Connelly went on to write three more novels about Detective Bosch — The Black Ice (1993), The Concrete Blonde (1994), and The Last Coyote (1995) — before quitting his job as a reporter to write full-time.[4]
Full-time novelist[edit]
Harry Bosch and Connelly received a good deal of publicity in 1994, when U.S. President Bill Clinton came out of a bookstore carrying a copy of The Concrete Blonde in front of the waiting cameras. According to Connelly, it was a big honor to have such a famous fan, and a meeting was set up between the two at the Los Angeles Airport.[4]
In 1996, Connelly wrote The Poet, his first book not to feature Bosch; the protagonist was reporter Jack McEvoy. The book was a success and earned Connelly comparisons to author Thomas Harris by reviewers.[4] In 1997, Connelly returned to Bosch in Trunk Music before writing another book, Blood Work (1998), about a different character, FBI agent Terry McCaleb. Blood Work was made into a film in 2002, directed by Clint Eastwood, who also played McCaleb,[4] an agent with a transplanted heart, in pursuit of his donor’s murderer. The book came together after one of Connelly’s friends had a heart transplant, and he saw what his friend was going through with survivor's guilt after the surgery.[2] When asked if he had anything against the changes made to fit the big screen, Connelly simply replied: “If you take their money, it’s their turn to tell the story”.[8]
Connelly wrote another book featuring Bosch, Angels Flight (1999), before writing Void Moon (2000), a free-standing book about Las Vegas thief Cassie Black. In 2001, A Darkness More Than Night was published, in which Connelly united Bosch and McCaleb to solve a crime together, before releasing two books in 2002. The first, City of Bones, was the eighth Harry Bosch novel, and the other, Chasing the Dime, was a non-series novel.[2] In 2001, Connelly left California for Tampa Bay, Florida, together with his wife and daughter, so that both he and his wife could be closer to their families. But even though Connelly moved from one coast to the other, his novels still took place in Los Angeles; he feels no desire to write books set in Florida.[5]
In 2003, another Bosch novel, Lost Light, was published. With this book, a CD was released, Dark Sacred Night, the Music of Harry Bosch, featuring some of the jazz music Bosch listens to.[2] Connelly says he prefers listening to rock and roll, jazz, and blues. While writing he listens exclusively to instrumental jazz, though, because it does not have intrusive vocals, and because the improvisational playing inspires his writing.[3] The Narrows, published in 2004, was a sequel to The Poet but featured Bosch instead of McEvoy.[2] Together with this book, a DVD was released called Blue Neon Night: Michael Connelly’s Los Angeles, in which film, Connelly presents some of the places in Los Angeles that are frequently featured in his books.[2]
The Closers, published in May 2005, was the 11th Bosch novel. It was followed by The Lincoln Lawyer in October, Connelly’s first legal novel; it features defense attorney Mickey Haller, Bosch’s half-brother. The book was made into a film in 2011, directed by Brad Furman and starring Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller. After releasing Crime Beat (2006), a non-fiction book about Connelly’s experiences as a crime reporter, Connelly went back to Bosch with Echo Park (2006).[2] This book sets its opening scene in the High Tower Apartment that Connelly rented and wrote from.[5] His next Bosch story, The Overlook, was originally published as a multipart series in the New York Times Magazine. After some editing, it was published as a novel in 2007. In October 2008, Connelly wrote The Brass Verdict, which brought together Bosch and Mickey Haller for the first time.[2] He followed that with The Scarecrow (May 2009), which brought back McEvoy as the lead character. 9 Dragons, a novel taking Bosch to Hong Kong, was published in October 2009. The Reversal (October 2010), reunites Bosch & Haller as they work together under the banner of the state on the retrial of a child murderer. The Mickey Haller novel The Fifth Witness was published in 2011.
The Drop, which refers, in part, to the "Deferred Retirement Option Plan" that was described in the novel The Brass Verdict (2008),[9] was published on November 28, 2011. The next Bosch novel was The Black Box (2012). Connelly's subsequent novel, a legal thriller, was a return to Mickey Haller: The Gods of Guilt (2013). His next book returned to Bosch in The Burning Room (2014), and then Connelly used Haller as a main supporting character in the Bosch novels The Crossing (2015) and The Wrong Side of Goodbye (2016).
Film and television[edit]
Connelly was one of the creators and executive producers of Level 9, an action TV series that aired for 13 episodes in the 2000-2001 season on the UPN television network.[2][10]
His novel Blood Work was adapted into a 2002 film with a screenplay by Brian Helgeland and direction by Clint Eastwood, who also played the lead role.
Connelly is the subject of the video documentary Blue Neon Night: Michael Connelly's Los Angeles (2004).[11]
He occasionally made guest appearances as himself in the ABC comedy/drama TV series Castle.[12][13] Along with fellow crime authors James Patterson, Dennis Lehane, and the late Stephen J. Cannell, he was one of Castle's poker buddies.
Connelly's novel The Lincoln Lawyer was made into a film in 2011, with Matthew McConaughey playing defense lawyer Michael "Mickey" Haller.
Connelly is the Executive Producer of Sound of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story, a documentary about the late jazz saxophone player, Frank Morgan.
Connelly is currently producing a TV series for Amazon Studios called Bosch, based on Connelly's Harry Bosch novels. It began streaming on Amazon Prime in early 2015, and was recently renewed for a 3rd and 4th season by Amazon.[14]
Michael Connelly, London November 2013
Awards and honors[edit]
Connelly has won nearly every major award given to mystery writers, including the Edgar Award,[15] Anthony Award,[16] Macavity Award,[17] Los Angeles Times Best Mystery/Thriller Award,[18] Shamus Award,[19] Dilys Award,[20] Nero Award,[21] Barry Award,[22] Audie Award,[23] Ridley Award, Maltese Falcon Award (Japan), .38 Caliber Award (France), the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière (France) and Premio Bancarella Award (Italy).[24] In 2012, The Black Box won the world's most lucrative crime fiction award, the RBA International Prize for Crime Writing worth €125,000.[25]
Writing techniques[edit]
When starting a book, the story is not always clear, but Connelly has a hunch where it is going.[5] The books often reference world events, such as the 1992 Los Angeles riots and the September 11 attacks. Even events that might not be considered as world-changing are included in some of the books, because they are of personal interest to Connelly. For example, in City of Bones, Detective Bosch investigates the murder of an 11-year-old boy. This was written during Connelly’s early years as a father of a daughter, and it hit close to home. According to Connelly, he didn’t mean to write about the biggest fear of his life; it just came out that way.[26]
Detective Bosch’s life usually changes in harmony with Connelly’s own life. When Connelly moved 3,000 miles across the country from Florida, Bosch had some life-changing experiences that sent him in a new direction in the book written at that time, City of Bones. According to Connelly, his "real" job is to write about Bosch,[26] and his purpose in bringing McCaleb and Bosch together in A Darkness More Than Night was to use McCaleb as a tool to look at Bosch from another perspective and keep the character interesting.[26]
Recurring characters[edit]
Every character in the list below, with one exception, has appeared in a Harry Bosch book. All of Michael Connelly's novels occur in the same fictional universe and character crossovers are common.
Main characters[edit]
Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch – a Los Angeles Police Department detective
Michael "Mickey" Haller – criminal defense attorney
Terrell "Terry" McCaleb – former FBI agent
Jack McEvoy – crime reporter, brother of one of the Poet's victims
Rachel Walling – FBI agent
Cassidy "Cassie" Black – burglar and ex-con. Lead character in Void Moon. Has a cameo in The Narrows'
Henry Pierce – Chemical scientist and entrepreneur. Lead character in Chasing the Dime. Pierce is the only Connelly character who has never appeared in a Harry Bosch novel (in fact he has not appeared in any other Connelly novel). However, Bosch was referred to by a character in ‘‘Chasing the Dime,’’ although not by name.
Renée Ballard – a Los Angeles Police Department detective
Other characters[edit]
Each of these characters has appeared in at least two novels of Connelly's.
Abel Pratt – LAPD Open-Unsolved Unit supervisor
Steven Vascik – A process server in Angels Flight, and also someone Mr. Connelly apparently knows. Vascik is credited with photos of Hong Kong on the author's website (photo gallery 15–17).
Carmen Hinojos – LAPD psychologist; first appears in The Last Coyote, Bosch later contacts her upon returning from Hong Kong to help Maddie cope with the events of 9 Dragons
Larry Sakai – Coroner technician with the LAPD
Teresa Corazon – Bosch's love interest in the Black Ice, appears later in City of Bones and A Darkness More than Night; medical expert examiner
Howard Kurlen – detective in Van Nuys Division and frequent opponent of Haller's on the stand
Irvin S. Irving – former LAPD Deputy Chief and Bosch's chief nemesis in the department; now an L.A. city councilman
Francis "Frankie" Sheehan – Bosch's original partner in Robbery-Homicide Division
Jerry "Jed" Edgar (aka J. Edgar) – Bosch's former partner in Hollywood Homicide squad; now a detective leader there
Kizmin "Kiz" Rider – Bosch's former partner in Hollywood Homicide squad and the RHD Open-Unsolved Unit; now an aide to the L.A. chief of police. When introduced, she was in a same-sex relationship with her commanding officer, Lt. Grace Billets
Lucius Porter – Hollywood Homicide Detective (The Black Echo and The Black Ice)
Ed Thomas – Hollywood Homicide Detective (mentioned in The Poet, appears later in The Narrows)
Ignacio "Iggy" Ferras – Bosch's former partner in the RHD Homicide Special Unit, killed during the events of 9 Dragons
David Chu – Bosch's partner in RHD Special Homicide. Was with LAPD's Asian Gangs Unit (AGU) during the events of 9 Dragons
John Chastain – former LAPD Internal Affairs detective, killed during the events of Angels Flight.
Harvey "Ninety-Eight" Pounds – Bosch's ex-supervisor in Hollywood Homicide squad, murdered in The Last Coyote.
Lieutenant Grace "Bullets" Billets – Pounds' successor as Bosch's supervisor in Hollywood Homicide squad. When first introduced, she had a husband, but was in a same-sex relationship with Kiz Rider.
Eleanor Wish – ex-FBI agent, ex-con and Bosch's ex-wife, mother of Bosch's daughter Maddie; moved to Hong Kong. Killed during the events of 9 Dragons.
Roy Lindell (aka "Luke Goshen") – FBI agent
Janis Langwiser – former prosecutor, now a criminal defense attorney
Keisha Russell – Los Angeles Times reporter, started on the Los Angeles crime beat, Now based in D.C., and occasionally provided information for Bosch. Jack McEvoy's ex-wife.
Joel Bremmer - Keisha Russell's predecessor on the LA Times crime beat. In The Concrete Blonde, it is established that Bremmer wrote a novel about a string of murders committed by a serial killer known as "The Dollmaker." Bremmer used this pattern to as a cover to commit several murders of his own.
John Iverson - Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Detective in Trunk Music, appears later in Void Moon.
Thelma Kibble – Cassie Black's parole officer
Maddie Bosch – daughter of Bosch and Eleanor Wish; Mickey Haller's niece
Buddy Lockridge – McCaleb's friend and business associate
Jaye Winston – Detective, works alongside both Bosch and McCaleb in Blood Work and A Darkness More Than Night
Maggie "McFierce" McPherson – A prosecutor in the Van Nuys Division, Haller's first ex-wife
Lorna Taylor – Mickey Haller's current secretary and second ex-wife
Hayley Haller – Mickey Haller's daughter with Maggie McPherson; Harry Bosch's niece
Dennis "Cisco" Wojciechowski – Mickey Haller's private investigator. Formerly associated with the Road Saints motorcycle gang who bestowed him with the nickname Cisco in reference to The Cisco Kid. (Wojciechowski is named after Connelly's real-life investigator, who, like Bosch, is a Vietnam veteran.)
Raul Levin – Mickey Haller's private investigator in The Lincoln Lawyer. Killed during the events.
At least two real-life LAPD detectives, Tim Marcia and Rick Jackson, have been sources for Connelly and have appeared in numerous Bosch books.[citation needed]
Works[edit]
Novels[edit]
Title Publication date Featuring Also featuring
The Black Echo 1992 Harry Bosch (1) Eleanor Wish
The Black Ice 1993 Harry Bosch (2)
The Concrete Blonde 1994 Harry Bosch (3)
The Last Coyote 1995 Harry Bosch (4)
The Poet 1996 Jack McEvoy Rachel Walling
Trunk Music 1997 Harry Bosch (5) Eleanor Wish, Roy Lindell
Blood Work 1998 Terry McCaleb Jaye Winston
Angels Flight 1999 Harry Bosch (6) Eleanor Wish, Roy Lindell
Void Moon 2000 Cassie Black
A Darkness More Than Night 2001 Terry McCaleb, Harry Bosch(7) Jaye Winston, Jack McEvoy
City of Bones 2002 Harry Bosch (8)
Chasing the Dime 2002 Henry Pierce
Lost Light 2003 Harry Bosch (9) Eleanor Wish, Roy Lindell
The Narrows 2004 Harry Bosch (10) Rachel Walling, Terry McCaleb, Eleanor Wish
The Closers 2005 Harry Bosch (11) Kiz Rider
The Lincoln Lawyer 2005 Mickey Haller (1)
Echo Park 2006 Harry Bosch (12) Rachel Walling
The Overlook 2007 Harry Bosch (13) Rachel Walling
The Brass Verdict 2008 Mickey Haller (2) Harry Bosch, Jack McEvoy
The Scarecrow 2009 Jack McEvoy Rachel Walling
Nine Dragons 2009 Harry Bosch (14) Eleanor Wish, Mickey Haller, David Chu
The Reversal 2010 Mickey Haller (3) Harry Bosch, Rachel Walling
The Fifth Witness 2011 Mickey Haller (4)
The Drop 2011 Harry Bosch (15) David Chu, Dr Hannah Stone
The Black Box 2012 Harry Bosch (16) David Chu, Dr Hannah Stone
The Gods of Guilt 2013 Mickey Haller (5)
The Burning Room 2014 Harry Bosch (17) Rachel Walling, Lucia Soto
The Crossing 2015 Harry Bosch (18) Mickey Haller, Lucia Soto
The Wrong Side of Goodbye 2016 Harry Bosch (19) Mickey Haller
The Late Show[27] 2017 Renee Ballard (1)
Two Kinds of Truth[28] 2017 Harry Bosch (20)
Editor[edit]
The Best American Mystery Stories 2003 (2003) – collected short stories.
Murder in Vegas (2005) – collected short stories.
The Blue Religion (2008) – collected short stories.
In the Shadow of the Master (2009) – collected short stories by Edgar Allan Poe with observations by current mystery writers including Sue Grafton and Stephen King
Short stories[edit]
"Two-Bagger" – in Murderers' Row (2001) and The Best American Mystery Stories 2002 (2002).
"Cahoots" – in Measures of Poison (2002)
"After Midnight" – in Men from Boys (2003)
"Christmas Even" – in Murder...and All That Jazz (2004); a Harry Bosch story (partner: Jerry Edgar)
"Cielo Azul" – in Dangerous Women (2005); a Harry Bosch and Terry McCaleb story (backstory to A Darkness More than Night)
"The Safe Man" - published anonymously in The Secret Society Of Demolition Writers (2005)[29]
"Angle of Investigation" – in Plots with Guns (2005) and The Penguin Book Of Crime Stories (2007) – continuation of The Closers; with Harry Bosch (partner: Kiz Rider)
"Mulholland Dive" – in Los Angeles Noir (2007), Prisoner of Memory (2008), The Best American Mystery Stories (2008), and A Prisoner of Memory and 24 of the Year's Finest Crime and Mystery Stories (2008)
"Suicide Run" – in Hollywood and Crime (2007); featuring Harry Bosch
"One Dollar Jackpot" – in Dead Man's Hand (2007); featuring Harry Bosch
"Father's Day" – in The Blue Religion (2008), and The Best American Mystery Stories (2009); a Harry Bosch story (partner: Ignacio Ferras)
"Blue on Black" – in Hook, Line & Sinister (2010); a Harry Bosch story, with Rachel Walling
"The Perfect Triangle" – in The Dark End of the Street (2010); a Mickey Haller story
"Blood Washes Off" – in The Rich and the Dead (2011); a Harry Bosch story
"Homicide Special" – in The Drop (2011); a Harry Bosch story written exclusively for copies of The Drop sold in Waterstones stores
"A Fine Mist of Blood" – in Vengeance (2012); A Harry Bosch story
"Switchblade" – an ebook companion to The Gods of Guilt, published on 14 January 2014; a Harry Bosch story
"Red Eye" – in "FaceOff" (2014), co-written with Dennis Lehane; a Harry Bosch story, with Patrick Kenzie
"The Crooked Man" – published in "In the Company of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon" (Nov 2014); a Harry Bosch story
"Burnt Matches" - published in "The Highway Kind: Tales of Fast Cars, Desperate Drives and Dark Roads" (Oct 2016); featuring Mickey Haller
"Nighthawks" - published in "In Sunlight or In Shadow: Stories Inspired by the Paintings of Edward Hopper" (Dec 2016); featuring Harry Bosch
Short story collections[edit]
Angle of Investigation (2011), includes "Christmas Even," "Father's Day" and "Angle of Investigation"[30]
Suicide Run (2011), includes "Suicide Run," "Cielo Azul" and "One Dollar Jackpot"[31]
Mulholland Dive (2012), includes "Cahoots," "Mulholland Dive" and "Two Bagger."[32]
Non-fiction books[edit]
Crime Beat (2004), collected journalism from the Sun-Sentinel and Los Angeles Times
Filmography[edit]
Television[edit]
Level 9 (2001) – co-creator and co-executive producer
Castle (2009–2011) – actor (cameo)
Bosch (2015) – co-creator and producer
Features[edit]
Sound of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story (2014) – executive producer
Michael Connelly’s Biography
Michael ConnellyMichael Connelly was born in Philadelphia, PA on July 21, 1956. He moved to Florida with his family when he was 12 years old. Michael decided to become a writer after discovering the books of Raymond Chandler while attending the University of Florida. Once he decided on this direction he chose a major in journalism and a minor in creative writing — a curriculum in which one of his teachers was novelist Harry Crews.
After graduating in 1980, Connelly worked at newspapers in Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, primarily specializing in the crime beat. In Fort Lauderdale he wrote about police and crime during the height of the murder and violence wave that rolled over South Florida during the so-called cocaine wars. In 1986, he and two other reporters spent several months interviewing survivors of a major airline crash. They wrote a magazine story on the crash and the survivors which was later short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. The magazine story also moved Connelly into the upper levels of journalism, landing him a job as a crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times, one of the largest papers in the country, and bringing him to the city of which his literary hero, Chandler, had written.
Michael is the bestselling author of thirty novels and one work of non-fiction. With over sixty million copies of his books sold worldwide and translated into thirty-nine foreign languages, he is one of the most successful writers working today. His very first novel, The Black Echo, won the prestigious Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 1992. In 2002, Clint Eastwood directed and starred in the movie adaptation of Connelly’s 1998 novel, Blood Work. In March 2011, the movie adaptation of his #1 bestselling novel, The Lincoln Lawyer, hit theaters worldwide starring Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller. His most recent #1 New York Times bestsellers include The Wrong Side Of Goodbye, The Crossing, The Burning Room, The Gods of Guilt, The Black Box, and The Drop. He will introduce a new series character, Renée Ballard, in The Late Show, coming out this July.
Michael is the executive producer of Bosch, an Amazon Studios original drama series based on his bestselling character Harry Bosch, starring Titus Welliver. Bosch streams on Amazon Prime Video. He is also the executive producer of the documentary film, Sound Of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story. He spends his time in California and Florida.
FAQs
Q: Why did you choose the name Hieronymus Bosch for your ongoing series character?
A: The main reason is that when I approached the creation of this character I didn’t want to waste anything. I wanted all aspects of his character to be meaningful, if possible. This, of course, would include his name. I briefly studied the work of the real Hieronymus Bosch while in college. He was a 15th century painter who created richly detailed landscapes of debauchery and violence and human defilement. There is a “world gone mad” feel to many of his works, including one called Hell — of which a print hangs on the wall over the computer where I write. I thought this would be the perfect name for my character because I saw the metaphoric possibilities of juxtaposing contemporary Los Angeles with some of the Bosch paintings. In other words, I was planning to cast my Bosch adrift in a hellish landscape of present-day Los Angeles. I should point out that this is a fictional conceit. I do not consider Los Angeles to be hellish. It can be in certain places and under certain circumstances — and this is where I place Harry Bosch. But overall I love Los Angeles and love writing about it. In naming my character after a real historic figure I was to a small extent continuing literary tradition. Many writers, including Raymond Chandler, drew the names of their characters from literature and art.
Q: Is Harry Bosch based on any cop in particular? How much of him is based on you?
A: Harry is not based on one cop in particular. He is an amalgamation of several real cops I knew as a police reporter, plus aspects of fictional detectives — from both books and movies — that I have loved. I think and hope there are parts of Philip Marlowe in him, as well as Lew Archer, Dirty Harry Callahan, Frank Bullit and many others, to name just a few. I think that starting off Harry had very little in common with me, other than left-handedness. Over the course of the books I have written with him, though, I think that my “world view” and his are becoming more closely aligned. This probably was inevitable. The more you write about a character, the more you look inside for attributes and thoughts to give him.
Q: How do your books relate to the Bosch TV series?
The show is based on the protagonist of the books. In season 1, we have taken plot lines from three different books and entwined them – one last for four episodes, one for eight episodes and one for all ten. Along the way we reveal Harry Bosch’s past, his ex-wife and his daughter. I think we reveal and show everything that made Harry Bosch the man he is. I think it is a very accurate take on the character and the books and I really hope Harry’s fans enjoy it.
Q: Which of your books is your favorite?
A: I probably don’t have a definitive favorite. I like different books for different reasons. I like the character resonance in The Last Coyote and Angels Flight. I like the plotting and tension in The Concrete Blonde. I like The Poet a lot because it sort of tweaks the expected standards of the thriller genre. I like Blood Work quite a bit because it did not use a standard archetype of the thriller protagonist yet I think it still provided the thrills and payoffs that genre requires. I like Lost Light because it was my first time writing Harry Bosch in first person. I think I can find something about each of the books that make it my favorite, so I guess that means that I don’t have an overall favorite.
Q: What is your work schedule like?
A: I work in the mornings. In the afternoon I take care of busy work. Then I like to work again at night. On the weekends I try to work a little bit in the morning, then take the rest of the day off.
Q: What books do you like to read? A: I read less than I use to. When you are writing this stuff you don’t want to read it, so I read more non-fiction now. But mysteries? Anytime I list writers whose work I enjoy I run the risk of annoying fellow writers who I forget to mention. So, suffice it to say that I share many of the same favorites that readers of my work have. I’ve kind of become a collector, so I try to collect first edition L.A. crime fiction. I also like to read autobiographies.
Q: Are you inspired by current events when creating your plots?
A: Yes, all the time. In most of my books there is what I call a grain of truth at center. What I mean is that I use a real crime or incident that I have heard about or maybe wrote about as a reporter. Or in the case of Blood Work, the story was inspired by a friend of mine who had a heart transplant. I essentially took his medical and emotional journey and dropped it into a thriller story — with his permission, of course.
Q: How much of Harry Bosch’s life is planned out in your head? How do you know where you will go with him next?
A: Not a lot is planned ahead. I usually have a few loose threads dangling from one book that I can then take to the next or even one further down the line. But I don’t think a lot ahead. I think that by not planning his future out I have a better chance of keeping him fresh and current and more reflective of the moment.
Q: What are your favorite and least favorite things about being a writer?
A: The main thing is being able to do what you want to do — and just having to walk down the hallway to do it. The least favorite is knowing there is no one to blame but yourself when it’s not going well. Somebody once said “writin’ is fightin'” and I think that is very true. It is not easy. You have to fight to get what you want to say out. So this means that when it is going well, the feeling is almost euphoric. It also means that when it is going bad, the feeling is proportionately opposite. So there are lots of highs and lows.
Q: Do you read your reviews, good and bad, and do they make a difference to you?
A: I read them, good and bad. They rarely affect my writing because I don’t think anyone can fully understand what I am trying to do but me. Good or bad, it is hard to take a review to heart unless the intelligence of the reviewer is evident to me either in the review itself or by other means such as personal knowledge or association. In other words, I don’t know whether to take praise or criticism to heart if I can’t figure out anything about the reviewer. Because just like book writers, reviewers are good and bad and bring everything they know and have read to the plate with them. There are a lot of amateurish reviewers out there who bring personal agendas to their task and there are many who bring thoughtful and unbiased comment. I have had both types praise and slaughter me. So in the long run I am always curious to see reviews but don’t get too worked up about them, good or bad.
Q: Any plans for a Maddie Bosch series?
There has certainly been a seed planted for that. We’ll see. It’s still a long ways off and I have to write a few books before then.
Q: What are your long term goals as a writer?
A: I just want to keep on keeping on. I want to grow as a writer and get better. I want to keep the Harry Bosch series fresh and alive. I want to keep filling in the portrait of Bosch so that when I am done with him he is a fully realized and understood human being, a person that the readers who have gone the distance with him know like a brother.
Q: Will you ever come to my city for a signing?
A: The publishers plan my tour schedule, not me. But they try to send me to new cities on each tour. I would like to get to every state in the USA and every country where I am published before I am through. You can check the Events page on the web site for all confirmed events. Join the site’s Mailing List to be notified about my tour schedule.
Q: I plan on attending your book signing. Will you sign paperbacks and your older books too?
A: I will sign anything you put in front of me. Some bookstores have their own policy about what you can bring in to their store, so it is always a good idea to check with the store first. It is also a nice idea to wait at the end of the line if you have a big stack of books so you don’t slow it down for everyone else.
Q: Can I send you my books to get them signed?
A: No, I am sorry but I would never have time to write if I said yes to this. I get too many requests. But I tour every year in different places around the world. Hopefully, I will have a signing at a bookstore near you someday. I also attend many fundraising events and book conferences every year. I am happy to sign books on any of those occasions.
Q: I have a great story idea for you. How can I get it to you?
A: Sorry, but for legal reasons, I do not read or accept story ideas.
Q: I have written a book. Will you read it and tell me what you think?
A: Once again, I can’t. I just get too many requests like this to keep up with them and get my own work done.
Q: What is the best way to find an agent or publisher? How do I get published?
A: There is no best way and no magic answers to these questions. You should consider joining the Mystery Writers Of America or another writer’s organization like it. These organizations exist to help writers. They offer symposiums and conferences annually. They offer e-mail lists for writers to discuss subjects like getting published, finding an agent, etc. They are a great resource. There are also numerous web sites available for writers.
Q: What is the best advice you would you give another writer?
A: Write every day even if it is just a paragraph.
A red-eye investigation
Bruce Tierney
(Aug. 1, 2017): p6.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 BookPage
http://bookpage.com/
The title of The Late Show (Little, Brown, $28, 448 pages, ISBN 9780316225984), the first book in Michael Connelly's newest series, is the au courant cop euphemism for what used to be called the "graveyard shift." Cop Renee Ballard gets exiled to this very shift after she files sexual harassment charges against a senior officer and loses the battle for justice. Ballard's new beat hosts a different sort of policing than that pursued by her daytime counterparts. Most of the time, her nighttime cases involve little more than preliminary interviews and the task of securing the crime scenes before passing the baton to the day-shift investigators. But this is all about to change when she comes across two new cases: the brutal beating of a transgender prostitute and the shooting of five people in a Hollywood nightclub called The Dancers (a nod to Raymond Chandler's seminal Los Angeles noir, The Long Goodbye). Like any good cop, Ballard chafes at the idea of handing off her cases, so she pursues the investigation on the down-low, a particularly dangerous undertaking, considering that the lead officer on the nightclub case is none other than the officer who sexually harassed her. Few authors, if any, know more about drawing readers into a new series than Connelly, and he does so in spades this time around.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
GOING OFF BOOK
Sometimes the best-laid plans go awry, but rarely as spectacularly as those of Cassie Dewell, an investigator for the Bakken County sheriff's department in North Dakota, in her foiled attempt to capture the serial killer known as the Lizard King in C.J. Box's riveting Paradise Valley (Minotaur, $27.99, 352 pages, ISBN 9781250051042). Dewell's latest sting operation should have been foolproof. But the culprit caught wind of the sting and then constructed his own retribution--punctuated with explosives and multiple dead bodies. Now Cassie is disgraced and out of a job, and the Lizard King is still at large. That said, Cassie still holds an ace or two in her hand--and she's no longer constrained by the rules and regulations of the police department. She has no intention of stopping until justice is done, either by the courts or, if necessary, by Smith & Wesson. Nobody in contemporary suspense does a better job of portraying the new Wild West than Box.
SOCIAL SLANDER
Adrenaline junkies, take note: The new Jeff Abbott novel, Blame (Grand Central, $26, 384 pages, ISBN 9781455558438), unfolds in totally unexpected ways--just as his fans have come to expect. Jane Norton is an old soul, aged by life events far beyond her tender 20 years: the mysterious death of her father; the tragic car accident that left her with serious injuries, partial amnesia and took the life of her friend and next-door neighbor, David; and the aftermath of being shunned by friends and family for her perceived role in said accident. None of the talk would stand up in a court of law, but a court of gossip is bound by far less stringent rules of evidence. Now, three years to the day after what she rightly considers the worst day of her life, Jane gathers up the courage to go on social media to see what people are posting. And that is where she finds the post from "Liv Danger" threatening to tell the truth about the accident. The post ends with the ominous note, "All will pay," and this is where the story takes off. At 384 pages, Blame is a long read for one sitting, but you'll want to do just that.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
TOP PICK IN MYSTERY
The field of suspense novels covers a broad range of subgenres and locales: intense urban police procedurals set in Oslo or Sao Paulo; unique detective stories set in North Korea or Botswana; cozies set in Martha's Vineyard or provincial France. But if you're desperately seeking mysteries set in post-revolution Laos, you have but one choice: Colin Cotterill's series featuring the irrepressible Dr. Siri Paiboun. In his latest adventure, The Rat Catchers' Olympics (Soho Crime, $26.95, 288 pages, ISBN 9781616958251), retired septuagenarian Dr. Siri finagles a spot on the Laotian contingent to the 1980 Moscow Olympics. (Keep in mind that this was a notoriously under-subscribed Olympic Games due to the politics of the time, thus affording an opportunity for poorer countries, like Laos, to take part.) Dr. Siri will not be a competitor, at least not in the athletic sense, but will serve as the team's doctor. He's also self-appointed investigator of all things seemingly not on the up-and-up, of which there will be many--like the unnamed team member who may be an assassin. The Dr. Siri books are by turns laugh-out-loud funny, sobering, convoluted, historical and endlessly entertaining, especially the parts where the eccentric Siri engages in putting one over on any or all of his acquaintances in government. This series will have you reading (and laughing) well after most people in your household are sound asleep.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Tierney, Bruce. "A red-eye investigation." BookPage, 1 Aug. 2017, p. 6. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA499345371&it=r&asid=f232e0e7bf1702c814144133c0417bfb. Accessed 4 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A499345371
Connelly, Michael: THE LATE SHOW
(July 1, 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Connelly, Michael THE LATE SHOW Little, Brown (Adult Fiction) $28.00 7, 18 ISBN: 978-0-316-22598-4
The 30th novel by the creator of Harry Bosch (The Wrong Side of Goodbye, 2016, etc.) and the Lincoln Lawyer (The Gods of Guilt, 2013, etc.) introduces an LAPD detective fighting doggedly for justice for herself and a wide array of victims.Ever since her partner, Detective Ken Chastain, failed to back up her sexual harassment claim against Lt. Robert Olivas, her supervisor at the Robbery Homicide Division, Renee Ballard has been banished to the midnight shift--the late show. She's kept her chin down and worked her cases, most of which are routinely passed on to the day shifts, without complaints or recriminations. But that all ends the night she and Detective John Jenkins, the partner who's running on empty, are called to The Dancers, a nightclub where five people have been shot dead. Three of them--a bookie, a drug dealer, and a rumored mob enforcer--are no great loss, but Ballard can't forget Cynthia Haddel, the young woman serving drinks while she waited for her acting career to take off. The case naturally falls to Olivas, who humiliatingly shunts Ballard aside. But she persists in following leads during her time off even though she'd already caught another case earlier the same night, the brutal assault on Ramona Ramone, ne Ramon Gutierrez, a trans hooker beaten nearly to death who mumbles something about "the upside-down house" before lapsing into a coma. Despite, or because of, the flak she gets from across the LAPD, Ballard soldiers on, horrified but energized when Chastain is gunned down only a few hours after she tells him off for the way he let her down two years ago. She'll run into layers of interference, get kidnapped herself, expose a leak in the department, kill a man, and find some wholly unexpected allies before she claps the cuffs on the killer in a richly satisfying conclusion. More perhaps than any of Connelly's much-honored other titles, this one reveals why his procedures are the most soulful in the business: because he finds the soul in the smallest procedural details, faithfully executed.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Connelly, Michael: THE LATE SHOW." Kirkus Reviews, 1 July 2017. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA497199818&it=r&asid=f490e4cf44a5826a1a796522df7f726c. Accessed 4 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A497199818
The Late Show
Bill Ott
113.19-20 (June 2017): p60.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
* The Late Show. By Michael Connelly. July 2017.400p. Little, Brown, $28 (9780316225984); e-book, $14.99 (9780316225977).
Connelly has been doing much more with his female characters lately: in The Burning Room (2014), his longtime series lead, Harry Bosch, shared screen time with rookie detective Lucia Soto, who emerged as a fully fleshed out, multidimensional character, and in The Wrong Side of Goodbye (2016), Bosch is paired with Bella Lourdes, another young detective who profits from Harry's mentoring while showing she's more than capable of stealing a scene from the veteran. Now, perhaps inevitably, Connelly goes a step further: debuting a new series starring a female detective, Renee Ballard, who has been exiled to the night shift after unsuccessfully challenging the LAPD's old-boy network by bringing sexual-harassment charges against her boss. Chafing at the lot of the "late show" detective, who must launch investigations only to turn them over to the day shift when morning comes, Renee continues to investigate, off the books, two crimes that land on her plate: the beating of a prostitute and the murder of a cocktail waitress.
Connelly's special genius has always been his ability to build character like the most literary of novelists while attending to the procedural details of a police investigation with all the focus of an Ed McBain. He does both here, showing us Renee on her surfboard, working out her Bosch-like demons, but also grinding through the minutiae of the case until she achieves that "Holy Grail of detective work," that moment of knowing she has her man. Many established crime writers--James Lee Burke, Ian Rankin, Randy Wayne White--have launched new series as their signature heroes age, but few have done it as successfully as Connelly.--Bill Ott
HIGH DEMAND BACKSTORY: The success of Amazon's Bosch TV show has enlarged Connelly's already enormous fan base, making this the perfect moment to launch a new print series.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Ott, Bill. "The Late Show." Booklist, June 2017, p. 60. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA498582731&it=r&asid=ab5ac8df543604a7f21ce04a67b99b6a. Accessed 4 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A498582731
The Wrong Side of Goodbye
Bill Ott
113.4 (Oct. 15, 2016): p21.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
* The Wrong Side of Goodbye. By Michael Connelly. Nov. 2016.400p. Little, Brown, $29 (9780316225946).
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Harry Bosch has jumped from being an LAPD cop to an ex-LAPD cop multiple times throughout the long run of this acclaimed series, but now it appears he's hung up his shield for good, given his latest acrimonious exit and the suit he's brought against the department. Harry's still working, though, both as a volunteer at a suburban cop shop and as a PI, but he's very picky about his cases, which is why when a billionaire of dubious reputation comes calling, Harry is leery. But the mogul, nearing death, has a compelling story to tell: a dalliance with a Latina student decades ago may have produced a child, who may or not still be alive but who may have produced a grandchild. Harry's job is to determine if there is an heir and then to report only to the mogul, not to any of his greedy underlings. The first part goes relatively easily--yes, there is an heir--but the reporting part, not so much, as the mogul is murdered before Harry has a chance to talk to him. Juggling his investigation with the responsibilities of his volunteer gig, now focused on trying to catch a serial rapist, Harry finds himself caught between the sometimes contradictory demands of finding bad guys and helping victims. Unlike so many authors of long-running series, Connelly continues to discover new depths to his character and new stories to tell that reveal those depths in always compelling ways. Hats off one more time to a landmark crime series.--Bill Ott
[HD] HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Harry Bosch is almost as big a success on TV as he is in print, and the resulting shock wave of promotional opportunities continues to reverberate.
Ott, Bill
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Ott, Bill. "The Wrong Side of Goodbye." Booklist, 15 Oct. 2016, p. 21. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA468771256&it=r&asid=7cbf6f54e899028e2c152585d06aa946. Accessed 4 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A468771256
Connelly, Michael: THE WRONG SIDE OF GOODBYE
(Oct. 15, 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Connelly, Michael THE WRONG SIDE OF GOODBYE Little, Brown (Adult Fiction) $29.00 11, 1 ISBN: 978-0-316-22594-6
Harry Bosch, balancing a new pair of gigs in greater LA, tackles two cases, one of them official, one he struggles to keep as private as can be.Now that he's settled the lawsuit he brought against the LAPD for having forced him into retirement, Harry (The Crossing, 2015, etc.) is working as an unsalaried, part-time reservist for the San Fernando Police Department while keeping his license as a private investigator. Just as the San Fernando force is decimated by the layoffs that made Harry such an attractive hire, it's confronted with a serious menace: the Screen Cutter, a serial rapist with a bizarre penchant for assaulting women during the most fertile days of their menstrual cycles. Ordinarily Harry would jump at the chance to join officers Bella Lourdes and Danny Sisto in tracking down the Screen Cutter, and he does offer one or two promising suggestions. But he's much more intent on the private job he's taken for 85-year-old engineering czar Whitney Vance, who wants him to find Vibiana Duarte, the Mexican girl he impregnated when he was a USC student, and her child, who'd be well past middle age by now--and also wants him to keep his inquiries absolutely secret. Harry's admirably dogged sleuthing soon reveals what became of Vibiana and her child, but his discovery is less interesting and challenging than his attempts to report back to his client, who doesn't answer his private phone even as everyone around Harry is demanding information about the case he doesn't feel he can share. Grade-A Connelly. The dark forces arrayed against the hero turn out to be disappointingly toothless, but everything else clicks in this latest chapter of a compulsively good cop's odyssey through the City of Angels and its outlying neighborhoods and less angelic spirits.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Connelly, Michael: THE WRONG SIDE OF GOODBYE." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Oct. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA466329361&it=r&asid=c8d1796d91ed34b5164b0b7f207c0cc0. Accessed 4 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A466329361
Michael Connelly: THE WRONG SIDE OF GOODBYE
(Oct. 15, 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Michael Connelly THE WRONG SIDE OF GOODBYE Little, Brown (Adult Fiction) 29.00 ISBN: 978-0-316-22594-6
Harry Bosch, balancing a new pair of gigs in greater LA, tackles two cases, one of them official, one he struggles to keep as private as can be.Now that he’s settled the lawsuit he brought against the LAPD for having forced him into retirement, Harry (The Crossing, 2015, etc.) is working as an unsalaried, part-time reservist for the San Fernando Police Department while keeping his license as a private investigator. Just as the San Fernando force is decimated by the layoffs that made Harry such an attractive hire, it’s confronted with a serious menace: the Screen Cutter, a serial rapist with a bizarre penchant for assaulting women during the most fertile days of their menstrual cycles. Ordinarily Harry would jump at the chance to join officers Bella Lourdes and Danny Sisto in tracking down the Screen Cutter, and he does offer one or two promising suggestions. But he’s much more intent on the private job he’s taken for 85-year-old engineering czar Whitney Vance, who wants him to find Vibiana Duarte, the Mexican girl he impregnated when he was a USC student, and her child, who’d be well past middle age by now—and also wants him to keep his inquiries absolutely secret. Harry’s admirably dogged sleuthing soon reveals what became of Vibiana and her child, but his discovery is less interesting and challenging than his attempts to report back to his client, who doesn’t answer his private phone even as everyone around Harry is demanding information about the case he doesn’t feel he can share. Grade-A Connelly. The dark forces arrayed against the hero turn out to be disappointingly toothless, but everything else clicks in this latest chapter of a compulsively good cop’s odyssey through the City of Angels and its outlying neighborhoods and less angelic spirits.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Michael Connelly: THE WRONG SIDE OF GOODBYE." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Oct. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA466551611&it=r&asid=c68b1a8e926840c9a99fabc92194695d. Accessed 4 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A466551611
The Wrong Side of Goodbye
263.40 (Oct. 3, 2016): p100.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
The Wrong Side of Goodbye
Michael Connolly. Little, Brown, $29 (400p) ISBN 978-0-316-22594-6
Bestseller Connolly's canny detective, Harry Bosch, remains a compelling lead, but even longtime fans may feel that his creator gives him a few too many fortuitous breaks in his 21st outing (after 2015's The Crossing). Bosch's long career with the LAPD is a thing of the past, and he now divides his time between PI work and pro bono service as a reserve police officer for the city of San Fernando. He gets involved in an apparently impossible case for an extremely wealthy client, Whitney Vance, who pays Bosch $ 10,000 just to agree to a meeting. The 85-yearold Vance asks Bosch to find out, in complete secrecy, what became of the woman Vance impregnated 65 years earlier and who disappeared from his life almost immediately afterward. The billionaire, who believes he is nearing his end, hopes the investigator can ascertain whether he has a living heir. Though the trail is beyond cold, Bosch lucks into a solid lead. The multiple contrivances significantly diminish the plot. Agent: Philip Spitzer, Philip G. Spitzer Literary. (Nov.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Wrong Side of Goodbye." Publishers Weekly, 3 Oct. 2016, p. 100. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA466166580&it=r&asid=8bc3fd212c6f0fa0a1b6cddd66a84864. Accessed 4 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A466166580
Review: Michael Connelly’s
‘The Wrong Side of Goodbye,
’
a Mystery Traveling the
Freeways
Books of The Times
By JANET MASLIN NOV. 9, 2016
Each of Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch books has a way of referring to earlier ones
in the series, as when his latest, “The Wrong Side of Goodbye,” brings up something
about a plastic surgeon. That surgeon figured in “The Crossing,” one of the series’s
better recent installments. And it came out only a year ago. Still, I had to look it up,
because the characters aren’t what make Mr. Connelly’s books worthwhile. The
classic mystery plotting and streamlined storytelling are what render him so
readable. Of all the big-name writers who dominate this genre, Mr. Connelly is the
most solid, old-school pro.
His books also have a kind of broody glamour. He has invested an unlikely
mystique in the stretch of Mulholland Drive that meets Woodrow Wilson Drive in
Los Angeles, because Harry lives nearby. Readers of the series know that Harry loves
the view from that place. He also loves listening to jazz (and plugging his favorite
musicians). And he loves his daughter, Maddie, by now away at college, but eternally
available for Mr. Connelly to imperil if Harry’s in need of motivation.
By the end of “The Crossing,” readers may have become a little dizzied by
Harry’s on-again-off-again relationship with the Los Angeles Police Department. (He
won a lawsuit against it for forcing him into early retirement. Still, hostilities
persist.) But in “The Wrong Side of Goodbye,” he has a new police job, working for
the City of San Fernando. San Fernando is a 2.3-square-mile enclave inside Los
Angeles, but it has its own small police force, which makes it the perfect hide-out for
a loner like Harry. Since Harry works for no pay, he can also take on private
investigations.
So, at the start of the book, he takes a commission from a very old and wealthy
recluse, Whitney Vance. Harry has an audience with Vance at the older man’s
Pasadena estate and is treated to an eerie story. Fifty years ago, Vance was in love
with a Mexican girl named Vibiana. She became pregnant, and the Vance family
separated him from her forever. Now in his mid-80s, Vance has no known heirs and
would like Harry to discover whether there are unknown ones.
There must be: The book begins with a Vietnam-era prologue in which a young
man, shot down in a helicopter, inexplicably cries out the name “Vibiana!” But Harry
quickly discovers that Vance’s teenage sweetheart committed suicide not long after
her baby was born and given up for adoption. So where do he and the book go from
there?
It’s headachy, at first, to crosscut between the Vance-Vibiana case and the one
Harry is working for the San Fernando Police Department: one about a rapist and
murderer who gets into women’s houses by cutting window screens, and times his
attacks to his victims’ menstrual cycles. (Hey, Mr. Connelly has written a lot of these
books. He has to reach deep down into the well to come up with new premises and
motives by now.) But he can be trusted to weave different threads of a book into a
resolution.
He’s also one of the last romantics. And one of the things he seems to love best
is Los Angeles’s freeway system. Sure, no Connelly book is without its traffic
complaints, but it will also lovingly detail the rides Harry takes all over the city, road
warrior that he is. And both the routes and the neighborhoods will come to life. Each
of these books is as memorable for its locations as it is for narrative or even
denouement, and “The Wrong Side of Goodbye” really takes Harry traveling.
Tiny, Hispanic San Fernando; the panoramic skyscraper in which Harry is hired
for the Vance job; the grand old-money throwback that is the Vance estate; the more
interesting places where Vibiana et al. wound up: All of it is etched in indelible detail
and with great care. The people of “The Wrong Side of Goodbye” may not be with
you by the next time Harry comes around. But the settings will be etched into the
Bosch road map of California life.
The Wrong Side of Goodbye
By Michael Connelly
392 pages. Little, Brown and Company. $29.
A version of this review appears in print on November 10, 2016, on Page C4 of the New York edition with
the headline: A Dogged Investigator Searches for a Rapist and a Billionaire’s Heir.
Bosch is back in Michael Connelly’s masterful ‘The Wrong Side of Goodbye’
By Maureen Corrigan October 31, 2016
It’s the primal scene of American hard-boiled detective fiction: A private investigator, resentfully dressed up in his best suit, drives up to an old man’s imposing mansion. It turns out the patriarch is ailing, but before he shuffles off this mortal coil, he wants to set some troublesome family affairs in order. That’s where our detective comes in. Before the case is closed, skeletons of the past will tumble out of closets, the corrosive effects of wealth will be reaffirmed, and somebody will be sleeping the big sleep.
If any novelist is worthy to walk once more through the front door of Raymond Chandler’s iconic Sternwood mansion, it’s Michael Connelly. For over two decades, Connelly has been brilliantly updating and enlarging the possibilities of the classic L.A. hard-boiled novel, first bestowed upon the world in 1939 with Chandler’s debut, “The Big Sleep.”
“The Wrong Side of Goodbye,” by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown)
The title of Connelly’s latest novel featuring (now retired) LAPD detective Harry Bosch even sounds like a Chandler title: “The Wrong Side of Goodbye.” Still, although this book, like many of Connelly’s novels, begins with an air of homage, it’s more than a Chandler impersonation. This latest Bosch outing is its own accomplishment: brooding and intricate, suspenseful and sad. In short, it’s another terrific Michael Connelly mystery.
Back to that mansion and the reclusive fat cat, Whitney Vance, who owns it. Vance has summoned Bosch, who’s now working as a private eye (after being forced into retirement by bullying bureaucrats at the LAPD) to investigate an enigma: “I want you to find someone for me,” Vance tells Harry. “Someone who might never have existed.” Vance then explains that when he was in college, he met a teenage Mexican girl named Vibiana who was working in the school cafeteria. They fell in love and she got pregnant, but after Vance’s enraged father offered to “take care of it,” Vibiana vanished. Now, Vance, who remained single all his life, wants to find out whether Vibiana had the child and, thus, provided him with an heir — and possibly a “spare” or two, if any grandchildren and great-grandchildren exist.
The clues are as faint as ant scent trails. Vance can identify the neighborhood where Vibiana and her parents lived in the early 1950s and that’s about it. Before Bosch departs, Vance warns him that other entities (such as the board of directors of his megabucks empire) may also be interested in hunting down his hypothetical heirs. That warning turns out to err on the side of understatement.
Meanwhile, Harry has other assignments on his plate. Never content with simply sitting around and listening to his beloved jazz CDs, Bosch has taken a volunteer job as a reserve detective with the understaffed San Fernando Police Department. There, he’s working on a case called “Screen Cutter,” the nickname for a serial rapist who’s assaulted at least four women in the area. The masked attacker always enters the victim’s home via a rear door or window after cutting through the screen. Oddly, all the victims had been at the ovulation phase of their menstrual cycle when they were attacked, leading Harry and his fellow detective Bella Lourdes to surmise that the perp had been inside each of their homes earlier, sussing out kitchen calendars and birth control dispensers. As disturbing as that scenario is, the case becomes even more grotesque as Bosch and Lourdes close in on this monster.
Book Club newsletter
Monthly book reviews and recommendations.
Sign up
Because Connelly is such a master of the genre, he casually sidesteps the usual narrative convention and does not intertwine these two plots. Instead, readers experience the stressful chaos of Harry’s overloaded and divided life: One minute he’s bending the rules and using law enforcement databases to check any listings for Vibiana; the next, he’s switching over to his department email to read through tips about the Screen Cutter. In between, he’s making phone calls to crime labs or trying to chase down leads, or texting his college student daughter, Maddie, to see whether she’s free for dinner.
Michael Connelly (Mark DeLong Photography, LLC)
Throughout this long series, Bosch has constantly been fighting police department higher-ups (this time around, his nemesis is an insecure captain in the San Fernando Police Department); he’s also constantly fighting the infamous L.A. traffic. For the Vance case, though, Bosch unexpectedly must travel back in time, to his own firsthand knowledge of military service in Vietnam. There’s an extraordinary passage in “The Wrong Side of Goodbye” where Bosch loses himself in a memory of the singer Connie Stevens, performing a Christmas show in 1969 for wounded servicemen (including the young Harry) on a hospital ship in the South China Sea. It’s a powerful moment of grace that stands in opposition to the evil about to unfold in the present time of the novel.
Like his hero, Connelly seems to possess the stamina of youth, as well as an unflagging zest for work. “The Wrong Side of Goodbye” is his 19th Bosch novel, and he’s also branched out into television, serving as executive producer of the TV series “Bosch.” Unlike Harry, Connelly doesn’t seem ready to cash in his 401(k) anytime soon — and for that readers should be grateful.
Maureen Corrigan, who teaches at Georgetown University, is the book critic for the NPR program “Fresh Air.”
Michael Connelly starts a new thread with 'The Late Show'
By Paula L. Woods
At the L.A. Times Festival of Books in April, Michael Connelly said of his iconic LAPD homicide detective Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch, “I didn't freeze Harry in time, because it's better storytelling not to. As long as he can keep his health and his knees are good, he can close cases.” Nonetheless, at 67, Bosch presents readers of the redoubtable series with a different kind of ticking clock. One day Harry’s knees — or his heart — will give out, a looming loss for those who identify with Bosch’s dogged determination in the face of adversity and his crime-fighting creed, “Everybody counts or nobody counts.” Given our morally fraught times, strong ethics are even more longed for, which may color readers’ expectations of Det. Renée Ballard, the 32 year-old protagonist in “The Late Show,” Connelly’s 30th novel.
He’s not breaking new ground in writing a Los Angeles-based police procedural from a female point of view, and Connelly himself has included several female homicide detectives in Bosch’s world (Lt. Grace Billets, Det. Kizmin Rider). But Connelly’s long-ago flirtation with writing from the female point of view in “Void Moon” was not entirely successful, not because men can’t write women but, in part, because that character, Cassie Black, did not have the moral core of Connelly’s other signature protagonists.
Connelly excels at writing principled outsiders, and Renée Ballard hews to this archetype. Bounced from the LAPD’s prestigious Robbery-Homicide Division because of her accusations of sexual abuse against her supervisor, Lt. Robert Olivas, Ballard winds up working the graveyard shift in “the Six,” taking initial reports on all manner of Hollywood Division crime that are later assigned to day-shift detectives for follow-up and resolution. Working the “late show” is as low as a detective can go while still holding the title, Ballard banished to Hollywood for daring to challenge male privilege within the department. Although Ballard has been ousted from the big boys club, her passion and commitment to the job are undiminished, even on the extraordinarily busy night that opens the novel with a bang.
Michael Connelly reads at The Last Bookstore July 22 at 8 p.m. »
First up is the victim of credit card fraud, a crime that spurs Ballard to play hardball with the card company’s Indian customer service center to provide her with information on where the ill-gotten merchandise was sent. Next is the case of a brutally beaten transgendered woman, Ramona Ramone. Her colleagues call Ramona a “dragon” and compare the length of her prior arrests to her pre-op genitalia. Ballard treats the victim, even while she’s unconscious, with dignity and later argues with her partner, senior lead Det. John Jenkins: “This is big evil out there and I want to keep the case and do something for a change.” But a third case, a horrific shooting at the Dancers, a Sunset Boulevard nightclub, keeps Ballard at the hospital to interview an incoming victim. Arriving at the Hollywood nightclub after the victim expires puts her squarely in the crosshairs of Lt. Olivas, who’s in charge of the complex investigation.
Connelly excels at writing principled outsiders, and Renée Ballard hews to this archetype.
With the Robbery-Homicide Division called onto the case because of its high-profile nature, Hollywood detectives are shoved to the margins. But Ballard doesn’t whine or complain about her role, seeing tasks as tangential to the case as doing a next-of-kin notification as “a sacred responsibility of a homicide detective.” The case also is a reunion of sorts with Kenny Chastain, Ballard’s former partner in RHD, who threw her under the bus by refusing to back her claim against Olivas. Det. Chastain is working the case under Olivas and is forced to interact with Ballard to collect evidence in her possession, and he receives a serious tongue-lashing about his complicity in her ouster. Longtime fans of the Harry Bosch series may do a double-take at the name, but one of the subtle joys of “The Late Show” is how connections in the LAPD family run deep, even as the focus shifts to new characters and situations.
Launching a new series and protagonist is hard work, and with so many characters, settings and departmental undercurrents to navigate, “The Late Show’s” seams show at times. The resolution of the Ramona Ramone case leaves lingering questions some readers may not be accustomed to experiencing. More significantly, the denouement of the Dancers murders, while cleverly executed, opens some huge gaps in understanding the shooter’s motives that one hopes get resolved in future novels.
While haters may dismiss her as Harry Bosch with ovaries, Renée Ballard is a computer savvy, hapa — half Hawaiian, half white — who paddleboards, sleeps some nights on the beach with her boxer-mix rescue, has more than one sexual partner and some intriguing darkness in her soul. As she juggles involvement in the three increasingly complex cases, working some officially and others against the direct orders of Olivas and her lieutenant, there are enough reversals, surprises and action to keep fans of the Bosch series happily turning pages long into the night. Equally important, what emerges in “The Late Show” is a character whose sense of justice, fairness and determination reflect Connelly’s strengths as a storyteller as much as they do his better-known detective. Connelly possesses an unparalleled knowledge of LAPD procedure and culture, something less experienced or less dedicated writers disdain for the sake of story. But the essence of the modern police procedural is to blend the crime, forensics, cop culture and the protagonist’s personal story into something akin to magic and Connelly still has the formula down pat.
Welcome Renée Ballard to the City of Angels’ crime fighting pantheon. Barring an 8.0 direct hit on the Hollywood station, we will be seeing a lot more of her.
Woods is a member of the National Book Critics Circle, an editor and author of the Charlotte Justice mystery series.