Michael Connelly's Novels: An Introduction & Overview

追加: 2026-05-05

[00:00:03][music] [music] >> Today I'm going to talk about the novels of Michael Connelly. Michael Connelly is one of my favorite authors, has been for about 20 years, and I'm starting a reading project on the channel where I'm going to be rereading all of the currently published books and reviewing them for the channel. This is a very long-term project. It's probably going to take about 5 years because Connelly's written over 40 novels. He has two more coming out this year, so even if I'm reading I'm planning kind of six or eight a year, it's going to take a while to get caught up with him. But I'm really excited to do so, and I'm excited to potentially share this author with a lot of you that may have not read him before. Stephen King called Michael Connelly the most consistent author that he had read, and I agree with that. I've been telling friends about this author for quite some time, and about 15 years ago I recommended this author to a friend of mine, and I said, "Todd, he cannot write a bad book." And it's true. Over 40 novels later, he hasn't written a bad book. He is Mr. Consistent. I have not read an author like that that has huge quantity, but huge quality as well.

[00:01:18]Now, I will be honest, he does not hit the ceiling as often as maybe some other crime authors, but his floor is sky-high, and if we in this video project determine Connelly's worst novel, it's probably a top 10 for just about anybody else. He is Mr. Consistent. He's a great crime author, and I hope that if you haven't read him before, you'll consider picking up one of his books. So, before Connelly was a novelist, he was a newspaper writer. He wrote feature articles, worked the crime beat at a variety of newspapers, finishing his career at the Los Angeles Times. And this informed his works in a couple different ways. The first is that him finishing up his career in Los Angeles, that's the setting of just about every one of his books. And a lot of his books are actually in a shared universe, which I'll talk about in a little bit in this video. But I know it's a cliché, but a lot of times you hear people say that the setting or the city is like another character in a book that you may read, and I feel that's true in a lot of Connelly's books that Los Angeles is its own character.

[00:02:21]Him living there and working the crime scenes and that kind of thing as a journalist really informed the setting, and I think he brings it to life really well. And in some of the some of the books, it's very evident that you feel like you're in Los Angeles, and it's not a generic city that sometimes you read in a lot of crime noir, where it just feels like a a dingy facsimile of New York City. But he brings LA to life quite a bit in these books. The other thing that I really like about his books, and I think this stems from his life as a journalist, is there's a high degree of realism in his books.

[00:02:57]I feel like there's a whole modern school of crime writers that are more on the crime thriller side of things that go for shock value, and they want to have the really out of nowhere exciting twist and things like that. And it's not that a Connelly novel doesn't take a plot twist or two, but they're always plausible, and they're always grounded.

[00:03:17]And I've really appreciated that about Connelly's writing, and that's the kind of crime fiction I enjoy most. It's not the hyperbolic over-the-top kinds of things, but the ones that are more grounded. And I think Connelly's background as a journalist working that crime beat, I think really did inform his his novels, and I like that gritty realism that you read in all of Connelly's novels. So, I alluded to a shared universe, and I think it's important for you to know that all of Connelly's novels are in kind of a shared universe. But before I talk about that, there's something you should know about these novels that I think is so important is that they've basically function as standalones. And I think it's really ingenious that he does this because you don't have to start with book one, The Black Echo, to be able to read the latest release by Connelly.

[00:04:09]To give you another example of another medium where this happens quite a bit is you can think about a kind of a procedural drama that you would get on kind of network television. So, like say Law & Order. You can watch any episode of Law & Order from any season, and chances are you're not going to have any lack of comprehension. You're going to have a story that has a beginning, middle, and end, and you're probably going to enjoy it. And that's kind of what we get with with Connelly. Now, there are aspects of these stories that are serialized over the span of all of these books. Harry Bosch is in over two dozen books, and he's like 30s and 40s at the beginning, and now he's in his 70s. So, obviously there's a lot that goes on in the span of his life throughout these books. But Connelly will inform you, just like any of those police procedurals that you would watch on television would do. If there's an important aspect of character, he'll let you know about it. If there's important important background or important thing about the politics involved, he'll let you know. And I like that. And in fact, because of this fact, I've always just generally said that if you want to read Michael Connelly, people ask, "Where do you start?" I say, "Anywhere." And I think that's very true. But I will be nailing down in this video reviews over the span of the next few years, each book I will mention whether I think it's a good entry point or not. I think the general global consensus is you can start just about anywhere.

[00:05:38]Often times when someone wants a short list, I'll give them a list of like four books. I'll usually say like The Black Echo, The Last Coyote, The Lincoln Lawyer, or The Poet as entry points. If they nail me down the one, I've been usually picking The Last Coyote, but all of these books do function as standalones, so they can be great entry points for any of these. In fact, when I started reading Connelly, I read four or five totally out of order just because I liked the titles or I liked what I read on the back of it when I was in the bookstore. And then after I realized how good and how consistently good this author was, I said, "I'm going to read everything." And I started back and did publication order, and just filled in the gaps of what I hadn't read already.

[00:06:23]So, let me give you a general overview about these books. Again, they function as standalones, but Connelly does have just a small number of protagonists that you see quite a bit. The first is Harry Bosch. Harry Bosch is an LAPD detective, and he's the most prominent character in all of Connelly's works. He's the main protagonist in over 20 of the novels.

[00:06:43]He's kind of a co-protagonist in some others, and then even appears as a secondary character in some others.

[00:06:50]Bosch is a great character. He's one of my favorite crime fiction characters, and one of my favorite literary characters ever.

[00:06:58]One thing that all of Connelly's protagonists kind of have in com- in common, and it's first witness which with Bosch, is just this dogged determination to do what he wants to do. And for Bosch, it's to just solve the case.

[00:07:13]Doesn't care about politics, doesn't care about any of those other things. He just wants to solve the case. And he's such a great character. He follows the archetype of a lot of kind of the loner detectives that you normally get in this genre. However, he does have a lot of depth to him. He only has a great degree of nuance, and you get to learn about him throughout this series. So, especially those of you that do read from beginning to end kind of publication order, you get to learn a lot about his backstory early, but there are things revealed further along that just make this a compelling character and continue to make it a compelling character even in these later books where he's in his 70s as the main protagonist. The second protagonist that you see most often in Connelly's stories is Mickey Haller. Mickey Haller first appeared in The Lincoln Lawyer, and that's kind of his nickname because he is a lawyer, and he works out of the backseat of several Lincoln Continentals. And he's a very memorable character as well. A lot of really interesting aspects of this character that develop over the the span of the books where you see him. He is main protagonist I think in eight books, but he's in a few more than that. He does pair up with Bosch here and there, which makes it very interesting. And of course, The Lincoln Lawyer novels, the Mickey Haller novels, are more legal legal thrillers. Whereas the Bosch books, of course, following an LAPD detective, are often murder mysteries and that kind of thing. But the Mickey Haller books are great. The Lincoln Lawyer is is one of those short list entry points that I mentioned earlier in the video. The third most common protagonist in these Connelly books is Renée Ballard. She first appeared in a book called The Late Show, and Ballard is kind of a generation removed from Bosch. And it's interesting because after we meet Ballard in her first solo debut, we see her paired up with Bosch a lot of times in different circumstances.

[00:09:03]And they work really well together. It's interesting because Connelly can then play with a dynamic of kind of different politics going on, different kind of protagonist in a different generation, different gender, all of that. She's a really compelling character as well.

[00:09:20]They just started an adaptation of the Ballard books, which I'm really excited.

[00:09:23]They have Maggie Q playing Renée Ballard, and the first season was really good of that. But I really enjoy the Ballard books as well. These are kind of later Connelly, but uh they're just as good, and she's kind of the third most prominent protagonist in Michael Connelly's books. And the fourth most common protagonist is Jack McEvoy. He's a journalist, and he's only the main character in three of the books, although he did appear as a secondary character in a recent book. His three books might be pound for pound the best of Connelly's. The Poet is the one, at least on my first read-through, that I consider Connolly's finest novel. I really enjoyed The Scarecrow, as well.

[00:10:03]Fair Warning was great. He puts out these periodically. And I don't know if he intends Jack McEvoy to be the stand-in for the author because he's a journalist, but he has that same dogged determination as all of these other characters that are Connolly's main protagonists. And then there's one more protagonist who's only been in one book, but he's going to be kind of important going forward, I think, and that is Detective Stillwell, who's on Catalina Island. And he's only been in one book so far, but one of the books that's being released later this year, he's also the protagonist for that. So, Connolly's adding just another layer to this multi-layered Los Angeles universe that kind of centers around Harry Bosch, but has a lot of diversity with the different kinds of protagonists. So, just briefly about the reviews, because I will review the first two books, The Black Echo and The Black Ice, both Harry Bosch books. I will review those in the next month or so. I'm not sure exactly what date I will release that. And I'm going to review them two at a time. And these will be spoiler-free reviews. The only kinds of spoilers that I will do is I will basically tell you a little bit about the plot, but nothing beyond what you would get on the inside flap of a hardcover or the back of a paperback.

[00:11:15]I'm a very spoiler-averse reader, so I pride myself in trying to not spoil anything for anybody. So, that's important, but then also I want you to be able to jump in, you know, a year from now if you see me reviewing The Lincoln Lawyer and you hadn't read a Bosch book or any of the Connolly books, to be able to watch that video and see what that's all about and not have any spoilers. The only minor spoilers I might mention is just secondary characters that bounce around the different books. I may mention, "Hey, this character who's Bosch's partner in the first book, we're going to see him for a while." So, I may mention things like that, but beyond that there won't be any major spoilers for the series.

[00:11:56]So, you can rest assured, if you've watched this video, you can watch the rest of the videos in this series that are going to be going out periodically.

[00:12:03]So, my goal is to do six books this year and then start doing kind of eight books a year. So, again, this will take about five years, but uh I didn't want to like just be reading Connolly right now, but I kind of just want to read Connolly right now because I'm guaranteed a good book. I really enjoyed when I was reading his books and I had so many to go. I would often pause for a while, when I would get in a reading slump, I would pick up a Connolly because I knew that right away I was out of my slump and I was back to reading another great book. So, if you're a crime fiction reader that hasn't read Connolly, you're in for a treat if you've haven't read this author and you're going to jump in and read some of these books. If you haven't read crime fiction before, jump in. See what you think. See if it's for you. Michael Connolly is a master. He's a favorite, and I hope that you'll enjoy this video series as I put it out over the next couple years. So, hey, if you've read Connolly, let's let me ask you a question. What would you say is the best entry point? Cuz I kind of hemmed and hawed with that and gave some different ideas, but put your choice below. And I hope that you'll check out the first couple reviews that will be out, The Black Echo and The Black Ice, sometime in the next month. I have reread both of them and just had a delightful time reading both of them.

[00:13:18]If you like this video, please like and subscribe. You can also find me on Twitter, Goodreads, and the Fireside Discord. I'd love to interact with you there. As always, thank you for watching. [music] Till next time, goodbye.