Declan Hughes at the Irish
Times offers a piece on crime novelist Michael Connelly.
Not content with being the
internationally bestselling author of 32 novels in 26 years and the executive
producer of Bosch, the acclaimed Amazon Prime TV show based on his most
enduring detective Harry Bosch, Michael Connelly is about to launch his own
podcast.
It’s called The Murder Book,
the first season is about a case that took 30 years to come to court and it
will feature the voices of detectives who have “a deep-seated fierceness about
not letting people getting away with stuff”.
Stepping out from under the
cloak of fiction is not exactly a stretch for Connelly, who still considers
himself a reporter at heart – virtually every page of his fiction is firmly
rooted in true crime – but there’s rather more at stake for him than mid-career
restlessness.
But first, there’s a new book
to talk about (with Connelly, there’s always a new book). When ebullient
defence lawyer Mickey Haller arrived on the scene in The Lincoln Lawyer,
readers suspected it was only a matter of time (two books) before he’d come up
against Harry Bosch. Detective Renée Ballard didn’t have to wait so long to
find a secure foothold in Connelly’s fictional universe. Following her debut in
2016’s incendiary The Late Show, Ballard is back in Dark Sacred Night. She’s
still working the graveyard shift at Hollywood Division, but now she has Bosch
to contend with. When did Connelly know that Ballard was a keeper?
“You get to the end of a book
and you ask yourself, am I finished with this character or is there more to
say? With Renée it was very clear, I was still fascinated by her and what I
wanted to do with her. I write about Harry Bosch and Bosch is a murder
detective and every story is a murder story, whereas Ballard takes on anything
that happens from midnight to 7am, so from the writing standpoint that’s a lot
of freedom, I can explore almost anything I want. Also, she’s the kind of
character who doesn’t punch out and go home at seven, she carries cases with
her, she has that relentless quality, and then the third aspect was, unlike my
other characters, who are usually based on an amalgam of real detectives,
fictional detectives, movie detectives etc, this character was wholly inspired
by one person who I have an ongoing relationship with, so am I stupid or what?
Of course I’m gonna use that.”
That person is Mitzi Roberts, an LAPD detective who’s been advising
Connelly for years, both on his fiction and also as a technical consultant to
the Bosch TV show. Connelly speaks to me from the set in Los Angeles, where
they’re shooting the fifth season and – as if to underline his centrality to
the enterprise – where he is interrupted more than once by crew seeking his
counsel.
You can read the rest of the
piece via the below link:
You can also read my
Washington Times review of Michael Connelly’s last novel, Two Kinds of Truth, via the below link:
And you can read my Crime Beat column Q&A
with Michael Connelly via the below link:
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