Michael Connelly
Michael Connelly
Michael Connellyis 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, have garnered him many awards. Connelly was the President of the Mystery Writers of America from 2003 to 2004...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth21 July 1956
CityPhiladelphia, PA
CountryUnited States of America
The bottom line is that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And I have to believe from past experience and knowledge that some of the links in Homeland Security are weak. Part of the story in "Lost Light" is about a weak link in the chain.
I think Harry and jazz go together for a lot of reasons. For the most part, he listens to artists who had to struggle to make their music, whether because of their personal demons and ills or those of society. They had to fight to make their music, and that is the bridge to Harry. In his own way, he has to fight to make his music.
What is overriding that and most important is that readers generally are interested in a good character. They might be more comfortable with Harry because they think they know him, but they always seem willing to give somebody new a chance.
You know what I did after I wrote my first novel? I shut up and wrote twenty-three more.
I've learned over the years that sometimes if you ask the same question more than once you get different responses.
Los Angeles was the kind of place where everybody was from somewhere else and nobody really droppped anchor. It was a transient place. People drawn by the dream, people running from the nightmare. Twelve million people and all of them ready to make a break for it if necessary. Figuratively, literally, metaphorically -- any way you want to look at it -- everbody in L.A. keeps a bag packed. Just in case.
The setting sun burned the sky pink and orange in the same bright hues as surfers' bathing suits. It was beautiful deception, Bosch thought, as he drove north on the Hollywood Freeway to home. Sunsets did that here. Made you forget it was the smog that made their colors so brilliant, that behind every pretty picture there could be an ugly story.
You can't patch a wounded soul with a Band-Aid.
I was enamored of detectives as a teenager. I liked what they did - piecing things together, thinking about situations. But to get there? Eight to ten years in a patrol car? I didn't have that in me. I didn't want to tell people what to do.
How I work is that I write a story I'd like to read. Then you fly to Paris or Sydney and the interviewers talk about the greater significance of your work.
Money. The ultimate motivation. The ultimate way of keeping score.
I feel I'm functioning at some level as a journalist because even though I write fiction, I'm trying to get the world accurate.
I realize now I could have gotten a whole book out of that and so I think that was a big mistake. But the truth is you write in the moment and with your head down and there is no way back then that I could have conceived of Harry having the longevity that he has had.
Action and adventure on land and sea-you can't ask for more. But Robert Kurson raises the ante in Pirate Hunters with an array of mystery and a fleet of colorful characters spanning four centuries. This is a great summer read!