Michael Connelly is tired. It is
Sunday, the third and final day of Dead on Deansgate, the annual CWA crimefest
in Manchester, where he has been the International Guest of Honour. Up half
the night chatting with fans and fellow writers, he has found the relative intimacy
of the small-scale Deansgate weekend more to his taste than its larger American
equivalent. I too am tired. I also have been up half the night, then an early
start to finish the most recent (1999) Connelly book, the superb Angel's
Flight, subsequently shortlisted for this year's CWA Gold Dagger.
This morning Connelly has played
to a packed room in the Sunday Guest of Honour slot. I am in the audience praying
that Ian Rankin, Connelly's co-conversationalist, will not duplicate too many
of the questions I have outlined in my notebook. A highlight of the subsequent
packed signing session has been a meeting of Connelly, M with Every Dead
Thing wunder-kind Connolly, J ("Did I get the spelling right?"
asks Connelly, M).
When Connelly's first book The Black Echo (1992) was published,
he was a reporter on the Los Angeles Times. The book introduced his major series
character, police detective Heironymous (Harry) Bosch, so-called to give the
character 'some kind of resonance right off the bat.' It won the Edgar
that year for Best First Novel. There are now six Harry Bosch novels, including
Angel's Flight, and Connelly's reputation and sales have soared
to the point where he is a regular in the best-seller lists across the globe.
As has been his habit in recent years ('to keep the series fresh') his
new book Void Moon is something rather different. Like The
Poet (1996) and Blood Work (1998) before it, it does not
feature Harry Bosch, and Las Vegas rather than LA is the background. And for
the first time the main protagonist is a woman.
As we settle into the anteroom of Connelly's suite, I recall his one-time description
of book tours and interviews as 'the scary part of my job.' Naturally
reticent, and despite a hacking cough, he proves to be a lucid and thoughtful
subject. We start by talking about Void Moon -and Cassie Black,
its key character.
" I have obviously written about women before and being a writer I have a
pretty large ego. So the women I've written about I've done pretty well, that's
my opinion. So I thought it was time to move it up, to try to give the whole
weight of the story to a female character." But the biggest departure "was
to write a story which didn't have any police in it, that didn't rely on any
kind of linear investigation or storyline to carry you through the book."
It is also "an underworld story. There are different levels or elements of
criminality in it. This woman...is herself basically a criminal. I don't think
that she is a bad criminal but how do you make a criminal sympathetic? One way,
the easiest way, is to have an extremely bad individual after her, so she becomes
the lesser of two evils. The second way is by making her extremely good at what
she does. So there are a lot of scenes that show her skill, her preparation,
the precision with which she carries out her crimes."
Connelly is understandably reluctant to give too much away but something
else is new: "A couple of years ago I became a father for the first time,
so that is something that I think has infiltrated my writing. So there is a
lot about maternal/paternal instincts in this book. It's a lot about maternal
responsibilities".
Michael Connelly was born in Philadelphia and grew up there and in Fort Lauderdale,
Florida, the second of six children. His father was a builder, which explains
Connelly's later appearance at the University of Florida as a student majoring
in building construction. The more crucial influence however came courtesy of
his mother, whose extensive library of crime novels formed a large part of the
young Connelly's reading. I ask him if there were any English writers? "I
was reading a lot of hand-me-downs from my mother, so a lot of that was English,
standard writers like Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle."
His epiphany however, causing a dramatic switch from building major to one in
journalism, is connected, not with Doyle or Christie or any of the other writers
on his mother's shelves but with Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye.
Not the book incidentally, at least, not at first, but the 1973 Leigh Brackett/
Robert Altman film version. He has described the event in the afterword he wrote
for the recent Dennis MacMillan reissue of Brackett's 1944 novel No Good
from a Corpse.
I ask him if the discrepancies between the two versions trouble him. "Altman
plays with Marlowe's moral code. In the end he makes choices that the Marlowe
we know from the books wouldn't make. That doesn't bother me. When you move
from a book to a movie, it's good to change the story, to tell it in a different
way. I had not even read any of Chandler's books when I saw the movie. Then
I went back and thought this is a different character. It's still one of my
favourite movies. Every now and then they show it as a double feature with Chinatown-and
I usually go. Both these movies I really like and I guess they are part of my
maturation as a writer."
Another perhaps surprising name that crops up in the Connelly biography is that
of cult writer Harry Crews. Crews was a lecturer in creative writing at the
University of Florida and gave Connelly "the single best piece of advice...
really basic but he's the one who said it first to me and it is 'write every
day.' If you write every day, you have to think about the story, so even if
you end up with one sentence you have accomplished a good writing day because
the story had to be alive in your head just to write that one sentence. It's
something I live by."
After graduating, Connelly became a journalist, first in Daytona and then in
Fort Lauderdale. On the latter's Sun-Sentinel he was a member of a team that
interviewed survivors of the airplane disaster Delta Flight 191. The subsequent
feature was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1986 and led directly to his job
on the Los Angeles Times.
Earlier, in the Rankin conversation, I have been intrigued by Connelly's statement
that he fended off promotion so that he could stay on the street as a reporter.
I ask him if by this point the ambition to become a crime writer was fully formed.
"It wasn't that obvious. It was always a hope rather than a prayer. You know,
like, some day I hope to do this, so I'm 
picking
up on some of the details so that I can." Those 'details' inform
and enrich the texture of every Connelly novel. Two of the early Bosch novels
(The Black Echo, The Concrete Blonde, 1994) feature
crimes known to Connelly as a journalist. His experiences interviewing survivors
of Flight 191 fed into Blood Work. But the novel in which he
most directly uses his experience is his most popular book, The Poet.
Like some of its readers I have a problem with the credibility of its final
twist, but one of the book's undoubted strengths is in the portrayal of the
pressures, both public and personal, that go with the job of the book's key
protagonist, journalist Jack McEvoy.
As well as Bosch and McEvoy, Connelly's books have featured as protagonists
ex-FBI heart-transplant patient Terry McCaleb (Blood Work) and,
in Void Moon, burglar (or 'hot prowler' in police parlance)
Cassie Black. Does he have a favourite? "My favourite is probably always
going to be Harry. There are aspects of the other characters that I like a lot.
Probably my least favourite, and the one I am least likely to write about again
is Jack McEvoy. As I've said before, he's just too like me. And it's hard to
sustain a whole year of writing about yourself."
The breadth of Connelly's reading can be illustrated by the references scattered
throughout the books to such varied writers as Chester Himes, James Lee Burke,
Bill Moody and Seicho Matsumoto, to say nothing of Sun Tzu. In Blood Work,
both Matsumoto's Inspector Imanishi Investigates and Moody's Death
of a Tenor Man are (briefly) the subject of a conversation between 'beach
bum' Buddy Lockridge and Terry McCaleb. This latter reference brings to
mind Harry Bosch's love of jazz. Does this reflect his creator's own tastes?
"Oh yes, but I get nervous when I'm asked that as I'm by no means skilled
at jazz or knowing about it like, say, a John Harvey. So in the books if there
is a mention of music, it's what I was playing when I was writing that."
And Matsumoto's Imanishi? "It was one I remember reading from the shelves
of my house. I re-read it fairly recently. I liked the book particularly because
of the way it showed the detective's life." That conversation in Blood
Work cites both Moody and Matsumoto as examples of the 'reassuring'
nature of crime fiction, ironic in view of Matsumoto's social, even political
agenda. It's a thesis that Connelly has explored in The Mystery of Mystery Writing,
a short article he wrote for the Walden Book Report in 1998. I put it to him
that many details in his books suggest that he too likes to leave some questions
in the mind of the reader. "Definitely." he replies. "I have trouble
with the tradition of everything being tied up, when it is so unreflective of
society. Coming from journalism and knowing that the cops in LA only clear two
out of three murders and that means that many many murderers are walking the
streets. It is hard, continually, every year, to write a story in which everyone
gets caught. So I leave things open. The Poet was the main one
left open. People think it's because I can do a sequel. But there will never
be a sequel. I want, in my literary landscape, there to be at least one bad
guy who never got caught. Void Moon has a bit of an open end also."
Essential to the 'act of reassurance' is the Chandleresque 'noble
man or woman.' Sceptical of the validity of this idea in the more cynical
present day, I ask him if he has met such individuals in real life. "Yeah
I've found a few. In my years as a journalist, there were some detectives that
I knew of that didn't put it away when they went home. To them, what they were
doing was an all-consuming mission. I think that is the way it is with Harry.
He almost feels that he is God's soldier, that he's been put down on this planet
to do this. And that's why he makes compromises and basically does what he has
to do, so that he can continue to be on this mission."
The serial killer has now featured as a major plot strand in several Connelly
books, in particular The Poet. In a panel on this topic the previous
day Connelly has indicated his current discomfort with the conventions. I ask
him to expand on the thought. "The thing that bothers me about The Poet is
not the serial killer thing. It's that there is split narrative in that book,
so that in short segments I write from the point of view of the killer-a child
killer. None of that is on the page-the killing and all that-it's more or less
a psychological study. I have no problem with the book. I think it's a good
book. A lot of people think it's my best and that's fine. I am very happy with
that book. But you can read a book in a day, two days. But to write a book like
that you have to be in that mind set for months. Now being a father, who in
their right mind would want to spend a year trying to think of how a kid-killer
thinks. It's really from a writer's standpoint, not a reader's, that I would
not want to do that again."
Another key element of the Bosch books is Los Angeles as a place. How important
was the Robert Towne/Roman Polanski 1974 film Chinatown in triggering
that idea? "Chinatown is probably my favourite movie of all time,
and I think it's a perfect grounding of a character in his place. I admire it
so much for that. Yes, it is definitely as influential for me as the Chandler
book. (That sense of place) is something I try to pull off with my Bosch novels."
The Bosch books have featured both the brush fires (The Black Ice,
1993) and occasional earthquakes (The Last Coyote, 1994) that
bedevil the city, as well as the man-made plagues of drugs, pornography, racism
and police corruption. What issues does he see coming over the horizon? "I'm
not sure I can answer that. I am continually disappointed by what happens in
Los Angeles, but I am also continually hopeful."
Has LA learned anything from its recent past? "Well you would think
so and then something will happen. It probably hasn't hit the news here yet
but another horrible horrible police scandal has erupted where a whole cadre
of cops are now under arrest for killing drug dealers. Right out of the blue.
I am obviously going to try to be topical, so I'm basically ready to react.
On a wider scale, not just LA, I am continually fascinated by the Internet-whether
there should be controls, and the crime aspects."
In Angel's Flight the Harry Bosch series has reached its
highest point to date. For the first time Connelly has widened the canvas, explicitly
embracing the city as a melting pot of racial tension and political intrigue,
a society in which it becomes clear that its police force is a thin blue line
between order and chaos. It is not surprising therefore that some policemen
buckle under the strain. I instance the moving, superbly written scene between
Bosch and his long term associate Frankie Sheehan, now under suspicion of beating
up a suspect. Under questioning Sheehan finally reveals how he finally cracked
and "became the very thing that I spent all these years hunting." But
the stress of life in the low-wage, high unemployment ghettos produces similar
faultlines in the black and Hispanic communities. I ask Connelly if he could
write a similarly sympathetic scene featuring say, a black rioter. 
"There
was some perspective from the black side in that book...that would obviously
be a large challenge to me as a writer. It's definitely something I think about.
I am probably intimidated by it because I'll be questioned on it. 'Do you even
have the right?': because everything is so politically, racially and socially
sensitive. In fact I got a lot of feedback on Angel's Flight from black readers
that was both good and bad."
Time to broach what is perhaps another sensitive subject. Hollywood has optioned
all of his books at some time or other. Indeed Connelly has dubbed his house
in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles 'the house Hollywood built'. Paramount
has options on the Bosch series with Harrison Ford in mind for the role, and
the script of The Black Echo by Ted Tally, the screenwriter of
The Silence of the Lambs, has been seen-and approved-by Connelly.
No less than Clint Eastwood optioned Blood Work at a near-final
draft stage and suggested changes to the tentative ending that Connelly had
written at that point. But nearly two years later, the movie is still not in
production. Was it a hint to the dilatory Eastwood that early in Angel's
Flight Bosch spots a street ad for the forthcoming film of Blood
Work? "First of all, I'm not really sensitive about any of it. Unfortunately
I can't really give you any answers. I'm not really sure what is going on. On
the Blood Work deal I have lesser involvement than any other deal."
Connelly has clearly learned his lessons however, for at the morning session
he has revealed that a condition of the screen option on Void Moon is that Connelly
himself gets to write the script's first draft.
We move on to talk about the Internet. The Internet's potential for both good
and evil is already a sub-theme in a number of recent Connelly books. He has
his own web site, run on his behalf by his sister Jane. Famously too, Connelly
has intervened in the debate that ensued on the Amazon cyber-space bookshop
website after many readers reacted unfavourably in on-line reviews to the ending
of The Poet.
I ask him if the advent of the 'Net has fundamentally changed the relationship
between writer and reader. He agrees, mentioning the popularity with readers
of his own website. (Check it out at www.michaelconnelly.com).
But as regards on-line reviews, he regrets his intervention. "I've stopped
looking at them. And I realise now that by replying, I only threw gas on the
fire." There were 27 reader comments on the Amazon site at the point at
which Connelly intervened; there are now 96, the most that a Connelly book has
generated to date. But the Internet remains a key interest.
Indeed Connelly reveals that he has written the script for the pilot (now shooting)
of a possible new television series under the title Level 9. This
will dramatise the workings of a federal task force committed to the detection
of and prevention of internet crime in such key areas as commerce, public safety,
and national security, together with the tensions created when dealing with
local enforcement agencies such as those in Connelly's key stamping ground,
the LAPD. A major problem in the writing has been to maintain dramatic and visual
interest in an area where much of the detection centres around a computer monitor.
Time is running out. Connelly's bags are piled near the door, ready for a quick
exit. I close by asking him whether there has been any change in the status
of The Last Coyote as his favourite book. "With every book,
it's an essential part of the process that I arrive at a clear idea of what
I want to achieve. So the answer to that question depends on how close to the
goals I set myself I eventually came. I'm very happy with Angel's Flight."
Bob Cornwell