Connelly

Don't tell anyone that today is so quiet at Booz Allen that I can write about the book I finished on the way to work this morning. I just love Michael Connelly. He was once a reporter at The Times and I can still picture him sitting at his desk in the Valley news room. Little did we know that he was just there to gather plots for his crime novels. He was a good reporter and an even better author. I have seen him every year at the Festival of Books and Karen and I got to watch him chat with Joseph Wambaugh about their new books.

This is the new book. Connelly has a much loved series about Harry Bosch, snarly police detective. He had also written a book called The Lincoln Lawyer about a lawyer who does all his work out of a fleet of Lincoln cars. These two meet in The Brass Verdict. Does it matter what the plot is? Let's just say that it holds together nicely. More to the point, it's fun to read about all the locations this book takes place in and around. He even writes about the new police center across the street from The Times, the one I loved to watch being built.

So, once again Connelly's plotting is good, accuracy is good, objectivity is good (how scummy does one feel, being a defense lawyer?) and character develop is good. All that work as a crime reporter seems to have paid off.

Eric and I had an interesting discussion about how we see these characters. He thinks Bosch looks like Belker from Hill Street Blues. I see him as being taller and less wiry. I don't know if that's because Len Cariou reads those books for Audible and that's how he looks. Eric thinks Mickey Haller - the Lincoln lawyer - looks like Tom Selleck. I'm thinking smaller, but not too smaller. Maybe Jon Hamm from Mad Men. He looks conflicted enough to be Haller. And he could certainly be a defense lawyer doubting his chosen profession. What do you think?