American · b. 1956
Edgar Award; Anthony Award; Dilys Award; multiple international crime fiction prizes
Michael Connelly is an American crime novelist and former journalist whose Harry Bosch series and The Lincoln Lawyer rank among the most acclaimed detective fiction in American literature.
Michael Connelly spent years as a crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times before publishing The Black Echo in 1992, the debut of detective Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch. That novel won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel and launched one of the most sustained and critically admired series in American crime fiction. Bosch — a Vietnam veteran, LAPD homicide detective, and obsessive seeker of justice for the dead — is one of the genre’s great characters: driven, difficult, morally serious, and rendered with a specificity of psychology and place that makes the Los Angeles of the novels feel as real as any city in crime fiction.
The series, which now runs to over twenty volumes, maintains a remarkably consistent level of quality. Connelly understands police procedure from his reporting days, and he deploys that knowledge with evident care — the investigations in the Bosch novels feel authentic in their complexity and their frustrations. The Lincoln Lawyer, which introduced defence attorney Mickey Haller, proved Connelly could build an equally compelling series character from the opposite side of the courtroom. Both series have been successfully adapted for television, and the Bosch streaming series in particular has drawn praise for its fidelity to the books’ tone.
Connelly’s narrative craftsmanship is exceptional: his plots are intricately constructed without feeling contrived, his prose is clean and propulsive, and his sense of Los Angeles — its geography, its racial politics, its law enforcement culture — gives the books a social texture that lifts them above genre routine. For readers new to the series, starting with The Black Echo or, alternatively, The Concrete Blonde (the third Bosch novel) is recommended. Connelly is simply one of the best working practitioners of American crime fiction.
by Michael Connelly
A man arrested for a current murder offers a confession to a cold case as a bargaining chip — the 1993 disappearance of Marie Gesto, a case Harry Bosch has never stopped working. But as the confession is entered and the case is closed, Bosch's instincts tell him something is wrong.
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by Michael Connelly
A man shot ten years ago in a drive-by shooting finally dies of his wound — the bullet lodged too close to his spine to remove — making it a homicide a decade after the fact. Bosch and his new partner Lucia Soto must reconstruct a crime that the city has long since moved on from.
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by Michael Connelly
Harry Bosch comes out of retirement to join the LAPD's Open-Unsolved Unit, working cold cases. His first assignment: the 1988 murder of sixteen-year-old Rebecca Verloren, whose case was buried in ways a DNA match on the murder weapon has just made impossible to ignore.
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by Michael Connelly
Harry Bosch is being sued for wrongful death by the family of a man he shot — a man he believed was the Dollmaker, a serial killer who preyed on prostitutes. As the civil trial grinds forward, a new body surfaces with the Dollmaker's signature, suggesting Bosch may have killed the wrong man.
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by Michael Connelly
Criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller operates out of the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car, traveling between Los Angeles courthouses. When a wealthy Beverly Hills client hires him to fight a serious assault charge, Haller begins to suspect the man is guilty of something far worse — and that he has defended it before.
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by Michael Connelly
LAPD detective Harry Bosch investigates the murder of a Vietnam veteran found dead in a drainpipe in the Hollywood Hills — and discovers a trail leading to a daring bank heist tied to the tunnels both men once crawled through in the war.
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by Michael Connelly
A Hollywood film producer is found shot dead in the trunk of his Rolls-Royce in the hills above Mulholland Drive. The method — two bullets, body in the trunk — is a classic mob signature. Bosch's investigation pulls him from the Hollywood entertainment industry into the organized crime networks of Las Vegas.
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by Michael Connelly
The murder of a Hong Kong immigrant liquor store owner in South Los Angeles leads Bosch into a confrontation with triad extortion networks — and then to Hong Kong itself, when a video surfaces appearing to show his daughter Maddie in danger.
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Where to start with Michael Connelly — whether to begin with The Black Echo, The Lincoln Lawyer, or City of Bones. A complete reading guide to the Bosch series.
guide
Every Harry Bosch book in order — all 21 novels from The Black Echo to Desert Star, including the connected Mickey Haller and Terry McCaleb series, with where to start.
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The complete Michael Connelly reading guide — Harry Bosch series, The Lincoln Lawyer, and the Connelly universe reading order for new and established fans.
Start with The Black Echo (1992), the first Harry Bosch novel. The Lincoln Lawyer (2005) introduces Mickey Haller, Bosch's half-brother, who also appears in later Bosch novels. Reading in publication order is recommended as later books reference earlier cases significantly.
The Bosch TV series (Amazon Prime) draws on multiple novels across the first seven seasons. The show is faithful to the character and tone but compresses and rearranges the plot. Reading the books is a different and richer experience — the show is not a substitute.
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