Features THE WAITING by Michael Connelly

THE WAITING by Michael Connelly

By R.G. Belsky

Michael Connelly – whose new book THE WAITING: a Ballard and Bosch Novel is out now – has created a lot of iconic characters. Harry Bosch. Renée Ballard. Lincoln Lawyer Mickey Haller. Retired FBI agent Terry McCaleb. Newspaper reporter Jack McEvoy. And many, many more.

But Connelly reveals in an interview with The Big Thrill that Harry Bosch will probably always remain his favorite character – because he was the first.

“It was Bosch who ushered me into this world so many decades ago, I hope he is the one who I’m with when I go out. There is something so sacred about writing your first novel. It’s an experience of discovery you never forget and since I had that experience with Bosch, I think it will be difficult for any other character to push him aside in my mind.”

Still, Bosch takes a bit of a back seat in THE WAITING to two of Connelly’s more recent popular law enforcement characters – Bosch-like female LAPD cop Ballard and Bosch’s own daughter Maddie, who is also now on the police force.

“There are a lot of things going in THE WAITING, not the least of which regard the meaning of the title,” Connelly says. “That changes as you make your way through the book. But this one finds Renée Ballard spinning a lot of plates in the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit as she marshals her all volunteer staff into investigations including a two-decade old serial killer case, a possible contemporary domestic violence case, and for good measure, a look at Los Angeles’ most notorious unsolved murder, the fabled Black Dahlia case.”

How does he describe Renée Ballard? “Ballard is mission oriented and resilient, undaunted and fierce. I guess those are all descriptions of the same thing. She has this inner drive to do the right thing, despite the bureaucracy, politics and even the misogyny that might stand in her way.” And he says that Ballard and Bosch are similar characters in many important ways – but they are different too.

“I think they are more the same than not, but they are on different points on the life experience spectrum. Harry knows things that Renée doesn’t know. Yet. But she’ll get there. Think of it as what Dr. King said. ‘The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.’ My characters are all on that arc, just different spots, all bending toward justice.”

As for Maddie Bosch, Harry’s daughter, Connelly loves that she has such a prominent role in this book as an investigator helping to break a big case.

“I have always hoped that I would reach a point in my books where Maddie could move to center stage. I needed her to age, grow some experience before I could do that. I think I am right there now, and we start seeing some of the promise of what’s to come in THE WAITING.” Unlike many other long-running series, one of the things Connelly has done in recent years is to dramatically age Harry Bosch over the years. He explains why he made the decision to do that a long time ago. “I think it was the ex-reporter in me,” says Connelly, who spent many years as a newspaper crime journalist before starting his career as a best-selling author. “I thought if I got lucky and I could keep Harry going, I would have this amazing opportunity to evolve him against the landscape of a city that is evolving as well. It worked out in better ways than I could have ever imagined or planned for.”

So could there ever come a time where he would kill off Harry Bosch in one of his books?

I hope that whenever I am writing my last book I am writing about Harry Bosch,” Connelly says. “Beyond that idea, I have not really thought about whether he will be alive or dead in those pages, but I hope he lives on beyond me.”

Of course, Connelly’s other most famous character – both from his best-selling books and the hugely popular TV series based on them – is Lincoln Lawyer Mickey Haller.

Does he approach writing Ballard and Bosch and Mickey Haller all the same way – or does he have to get into a different mindset for each of them?

“To me they are in the same universe, on the same arc, so I don’t need to do a big mind reset when I move between them, even though one may be a detective and the other a defense lawyer.”

In addition to the Lincoln Lawyer and the Bosch TV series, there’s a new show on the way: starring Renée Ballard. “We are filming now with Maggie Q as Ballard. She is fantastic on screen but also a fantastic team player. As number one on the call sheet, she sets the tone. A set can become a fun work environment or a tense one, depending on your Number One. I am happy to say we have a good set and our Number One is professional, happy, collegial and sharing all the way. I am very lucky that this has happened on all three of the shows I am involved in.”

But he says his priority is still the books – despite all the success of Bosch and the others on the screen. “I am a book writer first and foremost. I like to keep a hand in the Hollywood stuff, but I can’t let it grip me and pull me in. I am a novelist and that is an amazing gift to have. I keep that front of mind and trust other people to take care of the Hollywood stuff.” Connelly has also said repeatedly that his career as a newspaper crime reporter – at the Los Angeles Times and elsewhere – was crucial to all of his later success as a best-selling crime fiction author.

“To me it added up to fourteen years of research. I wanted to write crime novels and here I was spending a decade-plus writing about true crimes and talking to true detectives nearly every day of my life. A lot rubbed off on me and went into my novels. The job also taught me how to write. There is no such thing as writers block in the newsroom. You have to have a work ethic that allows you to write every day. The work teaches you how to move story forward with every sentence and piece of dialogue. It also teaches you the importance of rewrite. All of these things were vital to being a journalist and I gladly took them with me into writing fiction.”

What’s next for him?

“Just today I finished a new book about a new character. I don’t have a confirmed title yet but once I do it will be announced and will be out next summer.”