Michael Connelly

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Michael Connelly (born July 21, 1956, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American author of detective novels and other crime fiction, notably those featuring LAPD Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch. His books, which have been translated into 35 languages, have garnered him every major award in his genre, such as the Edgar Award, Anthony Award, Macavity Award, Los Angeles Times Best Mystery/Thriller Award, etc. Connelly was the President of the Mystery Writers of America from 2003 to 2004.

His style does not usually involve researching for his books; he says that he prefers to just write, focusing more on his characters than the surroundings. His books often reflect on events happening in the world, like the 9/11 bombings and the beating of Rodney King. Most of the events in Harry Bosch's life in his novels are loosely based on events he himself was witnessing or undergoing.

Other POV characters besides Harry Bosch include Los Angeles Times crime reporter Jack McEvoy and ethically dubious defense lawyer Mickey Haller. Characters in one series pop up in other series quite frequently, as shown below.

Has a regular poker game with a fictional novelist.

Books published by Michael Connelly (in chronological order, arranged by main character):

  • The Harry Bosch Novels
    • The Black Echo
    • The Black Ice - with a possible cameo by Mickey Haller
    • The Concrete Blonde
    • The Last Coyote
    • Trunk Music
    • Angels Flight
    • A Darkness More Than Night - Also features Terry McCaleb, Rachel Walling, and Jack McEvoy.
    • City of Bones
    • Lost Light
    • The Narrows - Also features Rachel Walling, Terry McCaleb and Cassie Black.
    • The Closers
    • Echo Park - Also features Rachel Walling.
    • The Overlook - Also features Rachel Walling.
    • 9 Dragons - Also features Mickey Haller.
    • The Reversal - Co-starring Mickey Haller.
    • The Drop
    • The Black Box (November 2012)
  • The Mickey Haller novels
    • The Lincoln Lawyer
    • The Brass Verdict - Also features Harry Bosch and Jack McEvoy.
    • The Reversal - Co-starring Harry Bosch
    • The Fifth Witness- With a cameo by Harry Bosch
  • Other Novels
    • The Poet - Features Rachel Walling and Jack McEvoy.
    • Blood Work - Features Terry McCaleb.
    • Void Moon - Features Cassie Black.
    • Chasing The Dime - Features Henry Pierce.
    • The Scarecrow - Features Rachel Walling and Jack McEvoy.
    • Suicide Run - Collection of short stories featuring Harry Bosch
    • Angle of Investigation - Collection of short stories featuring Harry Bosch

This author's work includes examples of:

  • AB Negative: Drives the plot of Blood Work.
  • Abusive Parents: Played with in City of Bones, where we find out towards the end that it was the sister, not the father, who was abusing the long-dead child murder victim.
  • Adaptation Expansion: The Overlook was expanded into a novel after originally being serialized in The New York Times Magazine.
  • Air Vent Passageway: Void Moon
    • Subverted towards the end of the novel however as the casino learned its lesson and added bars to the vents.
  • The Alcoholic: Broken-down Hollywood homicide cop Lucius Porter, featured in The Black Echo and The Black Ice
    • Sam Delacroix, murder victim's father, in City of Bones
  • Alliterative Name: Chief Irvin Irving, Bosch's LAPD nemesis.
  • Alone with the Psycho: The Poet
  • Always Gets His Man: Detective Hieronymus Bosch, LAPD, Robbery-Homicide Division.
  • Amicably Divorced: Mickey Haller can't seem to quit dating his first ex-wife, and his second ex-wife works for him.
  • Amoral Attorney: Mickey Haller skirts the edge of this, and feels bad about it. He often deals with more unambiguously Amoral Attorneys.
  • The Atoner: Mickey Haller in The Lincoln Lawyer when he finds out that he once had an actual innocent client--whom Haller strong-armed into pleading guilty.
  • Badass Grandpa: Harry Bosch was born circa 1950.
  • Bank Robbery: The Black Echo
  • Battle in the Rain: Climax to The Narrows
  • Blood From the Mouth: The Overlook, 9 Dragons, The Black Echo, The Concrete Blonde, Trunk Music
  • Book Ends: The first and last chapters of The Poet begin with the same sentence--"Death is my beat."
  • The Bus Came Back: Entirely by chance, while on an investigation Bosch runs across old girlfriend Eleanor Wish in Las Vegas in Trunk Music.
    • Bosch's old nemesis Irvin Irving returns in The Drop six years after being forced out of the LAPD at the end of The Closers.
  • But Now I Must Go: Bosch at the end of City of Bones
  • Call Back / Continuity Nod: Many. The murder that kicks off the plot of 9 Dragons happens at the same convenience store where Harry Bosch found himself at the end of Angels Flight.
    • Fictional film company Archway Studios pops up in Trunk Music, The Brass Verdict, A Darkness More Than Night, Lost Light, The Fifth Witness, and The Drop
    • In Lost Light we find out that the events of Void Moon were made into a movie.
  • Canon Welding: Blood Work and The Poet did not have any ties to the Harry Bosch universe when they were published, but both were connected to the rest of Connelly's books in A Darkness More Than Night.
  • Chekhov's Gun: In every novel, starting with The Black Echo, in which Bosch spends much of the novel irritated at Internal Affairs for confiscating his tape recorder, only to find a vital clue on the tape recorder when he finally gets it back.
    • Carver delivers a long, seemingly pointless lecture about the fire extingushing system at the server farm in The Scarecrow. Naturally, it proves crucial to the climax.
  • Classy Cat Burglar: In Void Moon Cassie largely fits this role.
  • Clear My Name: Mickey Haller gets this often from his clients, which makes it a bummer when they turn out to be guilty.
  • Country Matters: Echo Park
  • Cowboy Cop: Bosch.
  • Cuffs Off, Rub Wrists: 9 Dragons, Trunk Music, Lost Light
  • Dead Little Sister: Chasing the Dime and The Poet, which has both a Dead Little Sister in the backstory and a Dead Twin Brother that kicks off the investigation.
  • Dirty Cop: This is one of Michael Connelly's favorite tropes. The Black Echo, The Black Ice, The Last Coyote, Trunk Music, Angels Flight, Lost Light, Echo Park, The Overlook.
    • The Brass Verdict features a Dirty Judge.
  • Disney Villain Death: Void Moon, The Last Coyote, The Scarecrow
  • Disposable Sex Worker: Strongly averted by Bosch, what with his mother being a prostitute who was murdered.

Bosch: "Everyone counts, or no one counts."

  • Disposable Woman: Julia Brasher in City of Bones basically exists, and is killed off, to give Bosch something to feel bad about.
  • Double Meaning Title: Blood Work refers both to Terry McCaleb's medical issues and his old job hunting serial killers for the FBI.
    • The Black Ice is a kind of heroin, and also ice on a road that symbolizes unseen danger.
    • The Concrete Blonde is both a murder victim found in concrete and the statue of Justice.
    • City of Bones is both the crime scene where a murder victim's 20-year-old bones are found, and all the old bones buried under the city of Los Angeles.
    • The Drop is both the Deferred Retirement Option Plan that fixes a date for Bosch's retirement, and a drop of blood on the neck of a murder victim.
  • Driven to Suicide: Angels Flight, City of Bones, The Last Coyote
  • Drop the Hammer: The Fifth Witness
  • Early-Bird Cameo: A full twelve years before The Lincoln Lawyer was released in 2005, Mickey Haller pops up, briefly and unnamed, in The Black Ice. Or maybe he doesn't. See Word of God here.
  • Embarrassing First Name: Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch.
  • Enhance Button: Averted in The Narrows, where Harry Bosch asks for a zoomed-in digital photo to be "enhanced" and is told that it's impossible.
    • Played straight in Blood Work.
    • Played realistically in 9 Dragons, with the use of a computer program to "guess" the image
  • Eureka Moment
  • Everything Is Online: The Scarecrow
  • Fair Play Whodunnit: The Poet won an award.
  • FBI Agent: Many. Bosch marries one.
  • 555: The Black Ice
  • Foreshadowing: Connelly being a Fair Play Whodunnit type of author, this happens in all his novels. Lampshaded in The Fifth Witness. A detail (a freshly turned garden in the suspect's home) is introduced, and Mickey Haller says

It was what the great filmmakers would call foreshadowing.

    • In the end it is foreshadowing, but in a different way from what Haller guesses.
  • Friends with Benefits: Bosch and medical examiner Teresa Corazon in The Black Ice. Bosch and LAPD makeup artist Vicki Landreth in The Closers.
  • Funetik Aksent: How Connelly renders a Southern radio preacher in The Last Coyote.
  • Groin Attack: Trunk Music
  • Gun Struggle: The Poet, Lost Light
  • Heel Face Turn: Mickey Haller's decision at the end of The Fifth Witness to turn away from criminal defense work and run for District Attorney is portrayed as this. Your Mileage May Vary.
  • Hello, Attorney!: Honey Chandler in The Concrete Blonde
  • He Who Fights Monsters: Discussed in The Poet.
    • Discussed again in Lost Light.
  • Hired to Hunt Yourself: The Poet, Angels Flight, The Black Echo, The Overlook
  • Hot Scientist: Dr. Shamiram Arslanian, the forensic scientist who testifies for Mickey Haller in The Brass Verdict and The Fifth Witness
  • Hypocritical Humor: In Echo Park, Harry says a suspect's Meaningful Name is something no one would ever give their kid. A few pages later, the suspect mocks his name while helpfully informing readers the main character's full name is the extremly unusual Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch.
  • The Infiltration: One of Bosch's suspects in Trunk Music turns out to be doing this.
  • Internal Affairs: The bane of Harry Bosch's existence.
  • The Internet Is for Porn: Chasing the Dime
  • Intrepid Reporter: Jack McEvoy.
  • It Was a Gift: Mickey Haller's antique gun in The Lincoln Lawyer.
  • Jack the Ripoff: The Concrete Blonde
  • Knuckle Tattoos: The murder suspect in The Reversal.
    • We learn in City of Bones that Harry Bosch got knuckle tattoos reading "HOLD FAST" when he was a teenager, but when he was in the Army they made him erase the tattoos by means of punching a wall until the scars obscured them.
  • Loads and Loads of Characters: All of Connelly's books take place within the same fictional universe. Note the many character crossovers in the bibliography above; even minor characters pop up in multiple novels.
  • Long-Lost Relative: Half-brothers Mickey Haller and Harry Bosch. Contrary to how this trope usually plays out, their relationship remains awkward even after they realize this.
  • Los Angeles
  • Luke, You Are My Father: Void Moon
  • The Mafia: Trunk Music
  • Nanomachines: This is basically what Henry Pierce is trying to make in Chasing the Dime.
  • Never Suicide: The Black Ice, The Poet. Averted in The Drop, where the guy everyone thought was a suicide at the beginning actually is a suicide.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Lisa Trammel in The Fifth Witness would have gotten away clean after two murders--but she just had to taunt her lawyer.
  • No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Mickey Haller receives one in The Fifth Witness.
  • One Last Job: Both the backstory and the present-day heist in Void Moon.
  • Owl Be Damned: A Darkness More Than Night
  • Pants-Positive Safety: The Black Ice, The Brass Verdict, Void Moon, The Last Coyote, Lost Light
  • Parental Incest: Incest of the abusive variety in Angels Flight, The Reversal, and City of Bones
  • The Plot Reaper: Eleanor Wish needs to die in 9 Dragons so Harry can take custody of their daughter.
  • Posthumous Character: Terry McCaleb in The Narrows
  • The Profiler: Rachel Walling, Terry McCaleb.
  • Red Herring: The Chinese mafia investigation that kicks off 9 Dragons, the terrorism investigation in The Overlook, the pursuit of skinhead suspects in The Closers, etc.
  • Retirony: Pratt, Bosch's supervisor in Echo Park, has three weeks before retirement, as is mentioned just about every time his name comes up. And it's all a Red Herring, as he's not a victim, he's complicit in the concealment of one, which leads to two cops getting shot. Harry is more than a little pissed when he finds out, especially since Pratt's machinations led him to accuse other people.
  • Rogue Juror: A for-hire example in The Brass Verdict.
  • Serial Killer: Connelly is big on this trope. The Concrete Blonde, The Poet, The Narrows, Echo Park, The Lincoln Lawyer, Blood Work, The Scarecrow, The Drop.
  • Shot in the Ass: Angels Flight. Not played for laughs one tiny little bit.
    • Also in the backstory for Lost Light, again not played for laughs.
  • The Shrink: Bosch has therapy sessions with Dr. Carmen Hinojos in The Last Coyote.
  • Shout-Out: In The Fifth Witness a producer muses that Matthew McConaughey would be good to play Mickey Haller in a movie. McConaughey actually did play Mickey Haller in the film The Lincoln Lawyer, released that same year.
    • More than one to The Film of the Book of Blood Work. In The Narrows a character common to both books complains about how he was portrayed in the Blood Work movie.
  • Significant Name: The original Hieronymus Bosch was a Dutch Renaissance painter known for nightmarish hellscapes. This connection is mentioned in several Harry Bosch novels and is explored at length in A Darkness More Than Night
  • Son of a Whore: Harry Bosch.
  • Stuffed Into the Fridge: in The Scarecrow, and literally in Chasing the Dime
  • Suicide by Cop: The Reversal
  • Suicide, Not Accident: At the end of The Narrows Bosch figures out that Terry McCaleb tampered with his own pills to spare his family another heart transplant ordeal that would have bankrupted them.
  • Switching POV: The Poet switches back and forth from Jack McEvoy's first person narration of his investigation to a third-person POV from an evil pedophile character. Its Sequel, The Narrows, has a similar structure, switching periodically from Harry Bosch's first-person narration to a third-person telling of the Rachel Walling/Poet storyline.
    • The Scarecrow features the same first-person hero, third-person murderer style.
    • The Reversal switches back and forth between its two POV protagonists, Mickey Haller in the first person and Harry Bosch in the third person.. Similarly, A Darkness More Than Night switches back and forth between third-person protagonists Bosch and Terry McCaleb.
    • Void Moon switches between thief Cassie Black and Karch, the casino security guy who's after her.
    • The Black Echo does this to the point of Early Installment Weirdness. The POV switches back and forth between Bosch, a witness to a murder, Bosch's LAPD nemesis Irvin Irving, and the Internal Affairs cops that Irving sends after Bosch.
  • Tap on the Head: Averted in The Last Coyote--Bosch has a concussion and is pretty messed up after getting whacked on the head.
  • Tastes Like Feet: City of Bones

Edgar: This Church of Nature tea tastes like piss water.
Bosch: How would you know what piss water tastes like?

  • Teacher-Student Romance: One of these, with a very dark ending, turns out to be the solution in The Closers.
  • Technology Marches On: Demonstrated and lampshaded by the Harry Bosch novels over a quarter century as Bosch ages in real time. In the early novels LAPD detectives are using pagers and typing out their reports on typewriters. In later novels Bosch is the last detective to still be using a typewriter, and he admits that he has to get his daughter to help him with computers.
  • Television Geography: In The Scarecrow Jack McEvoy drives Highway 50, "The Loneliest Road in America", from Las Vegas to Ely, Nevada. Unfortunately Highway 50 does not go to Las Vegas; it is the east-west road that one would take from Carson City to Ely. From Las Vegas one would take the north-south road, Highway 93 (just as lonely, but without a colorful nickname), to Ely.
  • Title Drop: Regularly.
  • The Triads and the Tongs: 9 Dragons
  • Two Lines, No Waiting: In The Drop Bosch investigates two cases: the apparent suicide of former LAPD Chief Irvin Irving's son, and a cold case murder that comes back with a very surprising DNA hit. The two cases never intersect with each other.
  • The Un-Reveal: In The Reversal Bosch develops a theory that murder suspect Jason Jessup is actually a Serial Killer, but we never find out if Bosch is right.
  • Vanity License Plate: Mickey Haller's "IWALKEM".
  • The Vietnam War: Bosch's past as a "tunnel rat" soldier in Vietnam comes back to haunt him in The Black Echo when one of his old Army buddies turns up as a murder victim.
  • Wall Slump: Lost Light
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Rachel Walling delivers one to Bosch at the end of Echo Park.
    • Terry McCaleb does the same to Bosch at the end of A Darkness More Than Night.
  • Who Watches the Watchmen?: Alluded to in a rather silly exchange in Trunk Music. Internal Affairs hatchet man John Chastain tells Bosch that he (Chastain) polices the police, leading Bosch to parry with "Who polices the police who police the police?".
  • You Can Leave Your Hat On: Trunk Music
  • You Just Told Me: The Brass Verdict
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