THE POET Jack McEvoy's brother, a homicide detective, has just killed himself. Or so it would appear. When Jack, a Rocky Mountain beat reporter, begins to investigate the phenomenon of police suicides, a disturbing pattern emerges, and he soon suspects that a serial murderer is at work. BLOOD WORK Thanks to a heart transplant, former FBI agent Terry McCaleb is enjoying a quiet retirement. And then he learns that the previous owner of his heart was not - as he'd been told - killed in an accident, but murdered. Reactivating his connections and his expertise, McCaleb embarks on a private investigation of his donor's murder, leading to a killer as audacious as himself. VOID MOON Cassie Black is lured back to robbing casino gamblers by a set-up that is too good to ignore. Soon she finds herself running from a stone cold killer who somehow knows her every move in advance, and who appears to be closing in on Cassie's most closely guarded secret - the one she will do anything to protect.
Michael Connelly decided to become a writer after discovering the books of Raymond Chandler while attending the University of Florida. Once he decided on this direction he chose a major in journalism and a minor in creative writing — a curriculum in which one of his teachers was novelist Harry Crews.
After graduating in 1980, Connelly worked at newspapers in Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, primarily specializing in the crime beat. In Fort Lauderdale he wrote about police and crime during the height of the murder and violence wave that rolled over South Florida during the so-called cocaine wars. In 1986, he and two other reporters spent several months interviewing survivors of a major airline crash. They wrote a magazine story on the crash and the survivors which was later short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. The magazine story also moved Connelly into the upper levels of journalism, landing him a job as a crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times, one of the largest papers in the country, and bringing him to the city of which his literary hero, Chandler, had written.
After three years on the crime beat in L.A., Connelly began writing his first novel to feature LAPD Detective Hieronymus Bosch. The novel, The Black Echo, based in part on a true crime that had occurred in Los Angeles, was published in 1992 and won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel by the Mystery Writers of America. Connelly has followed that up with over 30 more novels.
Over eighty million copies of Connelly’s books have sold worldwide and he has been translated into forty-five foreign languages. He has won the Edgar Award, Anthony Award, Macavity Award, Los Angeles Times Best Mystery/Thriller Award, Shamus Award, Dilys Award, Nero Award, Barry Award, Audie Award, Ridley Award, Maltese Falcon Award (Japan), .38 Caliber Award (France), Grand Prix Award (France), Premio Bancarella Award (Italy), and the Pepe Carvalho award (Spain) .
Michael was the President of the Mystery Writers of America organization in 2003 and 2004. In addition to his literary work, Michael is one of the producers and writers of the TV show, “Bosch,” which is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
Michael lives with his family in Los Angeles and Tampa, Florida.
Re-reads and interesting to see the crossover references to the Harry Bosch and Lincoln Lawyer novels which are more apparent in hindsight. Blood Work is probably the best of the three and Void Moon suffered because it wasn't a whodunnit so lacked some of the narrative drive you get with those stories (and the twist confused me a bit but I couldn't be bothered to go back and check what had gone before). Proof though that Connelly has always been one of the best thriller/crime writers.
I only read Bloodwork, but couldn't find just Bloodwork on goodreads.
I saw the Clint Eastwood movie with my father a few years ago so it was nice to picture Clint Eastwood as I was reading this detective mystery for class. It held my interest, but it’s not something I would pick up on my own.