A Conversation with Author Michael Connelly

good afternoon everyone and welcome to Pasadena Central Library my name is Tim McDonald I'm the Deputy Director of Pasadena Public Library and I'm thrilled to invite you to tonight's program if you haven't already please take a moment to silence your cell phone the end of our program tonight if you haven't already books are available for sale thanks to the generous support of the Friends of the Pasadena Public Library awesome without further ado I'd like to introduce you to our library director Michele Pereira oh my gosh she's so much taller than I am thank you good evening everybody thank you for coming we are so excited to have this event here when we found out that mr. Connelly was coming to visit everyone here was just well practically screaming actually we were so thrilled we have a great evening for you and I'm thrilled to see we are men in uniform here in front with our Chief of Police [Applause] [Music] when our police chief Perez here found out we were having Michael Connolly he said I think you're gonna need some extra security there so we're gonna show up okay that's great so actually you know like a Tim said we are very thankful to our friends of the library and Romans for helping us out with this event since the book just came out on Tuesday there's a lot of demand late and you may not know this but there's a library conference in town and there are about 2,000 librarians running around Pasadena right now so at the convention center and mr. Connolly is gonna be joining us there later so I'm gonna get this started and I'm gonna tell you a little bit about his career and I'm also going to introduce with two authors obviously mr. Connolly and we have Steph Chow who's going to be in conversation with him and she's the author of your house will pay and the Juniper song crime trilogy she's an editor and critic whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times USA Today and the Los Angeles Review of Books a native of the San Fernando Valley she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and her two basset hounds I know so maybe we'll find out about that later too and as you can imagine with an author that has written as many books as he has written 33 including this one oh and something like 74 million copies sold this is gonna be a little bit of a lengthy bio but I think it's worth it Michael Connelly was born in Philadelphia on June 2 at July 21st 1956 he moved to Florida with his family when he was 12 years old Michael decided to become a writer after discovering the books of Raymond Chandler while attending the University of Florida once he decided on his 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 mr. Connolly worked at newspapers in Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale 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 this 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 their survivors which was later shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing the magazine story also moved mr. Connolly into the upper levels of journalism lending him a job as a crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times one of the largest newspapers in the country and I still get my subscription at home by the way and bringing him to the city of which his literary hero Chandler had written Michael is the best-selling author of now 33 novels and one work of nonfiction with over 74 million copies of his book sold worldwide and translated into 40 languages he is one of the most successful working writers today his very first novel the black oak Ecco won the prestigious Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best first novel Mystery Writers excuse me the black cocoa won the procedures mystery right of America Edgar Award for Best first novel oh my gosh in 1992 in 2002 Clint Eastwood directed and starred in the movie adaptation of Connolly's novel blood work in March of 2011 the movie adaptation of his number one best-selling novel The Lincoln Lawyer hit the theaters worldwide starring Matthew McConaughey and Mickey Heller and now we come to where we are today Michael is the executive producer of Bosch an Amazon Studios original drama based on the best-selling character Harry Bosch starring Titus Welliver Bosch streams on Amazon video he is the creator and host of a podcast murder book he's also the executive he is also the executive producer of the documentary films sound of redemption the Frank Morgan story and tales of an American he spends his time between California how lucky are we and Florida ladies and gentlemen enough of me mr. Michael Connelly and Steph Chou [Applause] we're very safe up here hello can you you can hear us alright good okay well I'm very very excited to be here with Michael Connelly as an LA reader and writer I mean this is this is a pretty sweet gig so let's jump right into it I love the nightfire I mean I love the I love the Ballard Bosh series I think Ballard is such a wonderful vivid character and since she's your newest series protagonist I thought we might start with her can you talk a little bit about where she came from what's interesting to me about Ballard is that you know I've been writing about Harry Bosch for more than 25 years and Harry was is a descendent of many influences many real detectives I know real police officers a lot of literary influences and even movies and TV so he kind of comes from all over and Ballard is completely opposite she's a single source inspiration I guess she caught it's a real detective with the LAPD named Missy Roberts and I've known her for a long time she's she's one of the detectives that helps me with my books and and then carried that over into being a consultant on the TV show so spend you know I've had breakfast with her that's usually how I do my research it's not going to crime scenes believe it or not it's having breakfast with detectives and one of those breakfasts is she let drop that earlier in her career as a younger detective she worked the midnight shift and and started to talk telling stories about it how it's a different City at night here and how the detective on The Late Show has to handle anything that comes up you know so one night it could be a murderer next night it could be a missing dog you know it's his highs and lows and it's a lot of different things and that destruct me at the right time I guess in my writing life that I was kind of looking for something that would have variety to it because you know with Bosch it's always murder murder murder you know and I wanted to change it up a little bit did when she was working the late show was that in Hollywood division no it was I forget which one it was I think it was rampart but it wasn't Hollywood yeah why did you choose because I felt more comfortable there and I thought there would be a more interesting variety of things I could get into a lot of the anecdotal stories that are in the books that Ballard encounters are true stories that most of my couldn't come from detective Roberts but they also come from other detectives I know and so forth and I don't know I just you know I'm obviously aware where Hollywood is and people's imaginations around the world and so I think that wade into it as well it's it's it's a really good choice and there's such a variety of characters that you meet in every book and a variety of cases I think that's I think that's part of what makes these books really fun particularly once Bosh got involved the kind of interweaving of multiple storylines and having them go on this all at the same time in this way that they kind of linked together thematically but they don't like perfectly dive dovetail together in a way that would be unrealistic I find it really enjoyable I'm trying to you know I'm a former journalist and I trying I'll never get a hundred percent accurate to what it's like to be a police officer a detective and what their worlds like but I'm trying to get close to it and they always have lots of balls in the air and and I just thought this situation with Bauer and would be perfect so that she would have like a case of real importance and something that really motivates her you know the book the night fires really means her the internal fire that she builds on a case and then there's stuff that like you know no one would believe this if you know it's too weird to be true type of stories that happen in Hollywood and other areas around here yeah another thing about ballard is she's she's an LAPD officer like josh has been but she navigates the the department in an entirely different way she is she's younger she's a woman she is she's Hawaiian and she's mixed drinks and in the late show something that has carried over from that first book throughout the series is that she has this nemesis lieutenant now captain leave us who sexually harassed her at a party and she has been the reason she landed on The Late Show is sort of as punishment for kicking up dust about that incident there's this great quote from this book ballard knew she could outwit and out investigate him all she wanted but he would still always have that unnameable thing he had taken from her I found that very powerful so so Bosch has always had his own concerns but they don't look like Ballard's can you talk about navigating LAPD life and politics with this character as your guide a lot of it comes from you know spending time and I guess she called research with the did you know detective Roberts and aspects of you know I've known her partner and previous partners of hers in the department for a long time and she just talks in a different way about what she has to do to prove herself to continually prove herself and so forth and you know it's like you know a tougher Road I mean I have a is weirdly I liken it to my own daughter who works on the TV show Bosch and she has my last name so she says I have to work harder than anybody there because I have your last name thanks dad you know and and Missy Roberts has some work harder than all the other detectives and then even still she doesn't get credit as at least in my opinion that she deserves and you know that's a motivating thing in that and at the same time and in the real life situation I feel bad about but I know oh I can take that into my book and that's grounds for some really good drama and and motivation for this character and to push her to the points that she goes you know I read The Late Show and it came out and you know reading reading a lot of your Bosch novels and just knowing that you wrote all these books about men I was very impressed with how how well and how realistic she came off on the page well she you know I still feel like I'm a reporter I'm not a genius when it comes to this stuff I have I have her you know she so she she vetted every draft of that book gave me you know told me where I was wrong and this is what I would do this is what I would think this is what I would say and so that that came through in the book and so I feel like the credits hers not mine I mean so I wanted to talk about Ballard and Bosch as a team they have really wonderful chemistry as partners that's gonna cure it i paralyzes so where is the wine all right here we go okay so Bosch is now this outsider to the department as of as of the events of dark sacred night he isn't even a reserve officer anymore and Ballard is on this midnight shift where she isn't being supervised that closely they make this they they make a really good team it's not it's not immediately intuitive when you think about it but like they click from the beginning and they have a they had a great rhythm so what do you what do you think it is that makes them such a fantastic team well I think it starts with they have you know Bosch is relentless and she's fierce and to me that's pretty much the same thing I always kind of boil characters down to one word and that's my one word description for them and it's very close so so it's kindred souls you start with and then just on that a level of what they do and where they are in life he's an outsider she's an insider she is a bad she doesn't so they they can do different things that perhaps the other one can't do and I think there's even something silly on ik about one worse at night with the other one sleeps at night you know and sorry I just think it matches up pretty good and you know I think there's still you know two books in to working together it's still not clear they're still not completely trusting each other but I think by the end of this book you can see that the main thing is that I had you know Bosch was hitting a wall of realism he's I'm stuck with in my books earlier books stupidly I said he was born in 1950 so you know so so he's 69 years old this year so he's he's approaching a point where people are going to be wondering like well how accurate is this if this 78 year old guy is running around so so so he's he's definitely looking for someone who can carry on his mission he sees it in her soul he knows that she carries the same kind of feelings about what they do the idea that is submission not a job and so I think by the end of this book and this is not a big spoiler it's not said it's just something hopefully the reader will get he knows that this is the person that's going to carry on after me he and he also kind of mentors her while not being like she doesn't mean he doesn't like she calls him dad at one point because he is on her about getting sleep and so there's this there's this push-pull where like he's her mentor but she's not actually like treat she's it does it doesn't have that like power dynamic and but I but he teaches her about the fire inside which I which I assume to matically goes with the night fire you know cultivating that fire that advice to take every case personally I found that pretty compelling speaking of Bosch is aging I did want to ask you about that so he's almost 70 his health has been steadily deteriorating in the background for you know several books now he even I guess I'll get to the leukemia later but he's he's not - he's not doing that great he has a new knee now so how do you deal with an aging Bosch do you see Bosch doing his botched thing until he dies and or would Maddie kill him first I don't know I it's like a big note to self next time create a character that's younger than you you know botch this several years looked older than me and that that was a mistake probably but that's so Valerie as many years younger than me so I think it will she'll outlive me but you know it's not something that's heavy on my mind it's just it's just it's just real life you know I know people his age and younger that I've gotten their knees but it's actually been a positive thing in their lives and you know we meet Bosch in the very first page here and he's I think he's one month or five weeks post-op on a new knee so he's still walking with a cane but before the books over he is discarded the cane and he's he's moving he's moving forward and you know and I think he feels that it's just and obviously there's no romance between him and Balor but he almost feels like she's making him young again is what I is the feeling that I get that he's right I you know my hope is that people realize he's ready to keep working and I don't have to worry about the end of the series or anything like that how do you balance the two leads do you worry about one upstaging the other I know in a dark sacred night you kind of have like you know they kind of save each other at various points in the book do you do you think about that and like in a conscious way I did more in in dark sacred night in this book I really believe that was Ballard's book and so I didn't really care if if she was on in more page or narrating or carrying the story in more than half the book I just it didn't matter to me and you know I think at the moment because she's and she's the new shiny thing and my writing life I really like writing about her not that I don't like writing about flash but I've been writing about blasts for a long time and so the new thing is more exciting to me so I I think I kind of pushed it towards her true heroes are hard to come by I guess he says that turn her towards the end of the book and he's referring to a former mentor of his who throughout the events of the book you find you know you've done some things as many people have that are questionable and it and it makes them come to question question who this person was do you think of these two as heroic and because I think cuz I think of them as heroic but I but I wondered about that because that came out of Bosch's mouth yeah I mean I think so I mean this is that old you know ring and chain or think about tarnished nights and so forth so yeah they're heroic that I think there's a noble bargain and what someone the real cops and what someone like Bosch and someone like Ballard do you know like it's it's thankless if you do it right and you know if you do it wrong then everyone's going to know about it but they still do it and they still care about victims and you know not that I'm any expert but you know of the detectives and police officers I've known over the years there's there's some that it's a craft and a job and there's some that it's a mission and I you know I want to write and I'm not saying one's worse or one's better it's just the way it is I just find the ones that carry it as a mission it's a dangerous way to do it because you can get that darkness inside you and it can do something to you and that's the risk and that's what I like writing about people who take that risk and Ballard and Bosch both do that and so in my book they're heroes yeah and that the wear and tear of taking every case personally I mean especially across so many books and I wanted to ask you about bashas evolution and the various changes that he's had professional and otherwise throughout the series because he's not even a police officer anymore and this has been true true before and it's true again he doesn't put out a shingle but he's a private investigator now right like he's working and he's working unofficially with a police officer you know I often think of because I've written a few API novels I think of p.i novels and police police procedurals police novels as distinct because like as genres they often do different things the outsider versus insider and botch has kind of he's been both and even now he's kind of both so where do you think this leads him both in his life and within the crime genre well I don't think about where it leads them in the crime genre but you know like where it whether you should be classified as a private eye or not he is he's acting was one but he's not an official one like he works for Mickey Haller and this book for on the case and and then he takes on this own case on his own I just think you know you know maybe he's a hybrid but I think from day one from the very first book I always thought of him as an outsider with an insider's job and now he's just an outsider and he doesn't have that that badge and so forth that is a symbol of the state you know this book also does some pretty interesting things with you know and I know you have Mickey Haller as the series character also but but Bosch does some work for for Mickey Haller and and he has police officers including Ballard accused him of her working for the dark side because Mickey Haller is working in his capacity as a criminal defense attorney so we see we see Bosch take some questionable illegal actions but while also keeping his allegiance to the truth and even due process by helping our can you talk about Bosh's code and whether it's been consistent over over the over the course of his career like have you do you have a defined idea of this was his code is everybody counts from nobody counts and to me that's an ideal and so the second part of your question has he been loyal to that through through his career and all through all these books no I mean he's fallen short and there you know I can think of a book a dart that's more than night which I think is where but you know kind of tripped and fell into the abyss but like I said it's an ideal and it's always out there and so there's always a redemptive journey you know I reach this point in writing my books where I knew I can keep writing about Harry Bosch if I wanted to and that gives you a lot of freedom so you can have a book where he doesn't live up to that ideal and then he can come back with a book where he totally does and he kind of redeems himself and you know I just think you know that's a conceit of fiction when an superhero dumb and stuff like that when when people live by this code and it never they never falter I rather write about somebody who he knows that's how he should live and how he wants to live but doesn't always get there have fans ever been really mad at anything busted gosh I'm about I mean even made of stuff I've done in the books to to people or to Bosch but I don't know if they've been upset with him you know I think his his motives are true he just you know he'd think everybody else he has flaws and and misses the mark sometimes but he you know he'll live to fight another day and so I wanted to go back to his health because Bosch has now been diagnosed with myeloid leukemia as a result of cesium exposure and the Overlook would she published in 2007 leukemia is a serious one I hope he recovers very shortly he's kind of under control did you always think you might use that plot point down the road I guess and as a broader question as you write all of these novels are you constantly planning ahead of the books that you're writing and how do you keep track of like the master plan for his whole universe yeah I don't really have a master plan like I don't even know when I will write about him next or what the story will be I know he's not in my next book I'm doing something completely different but at the same time I don't have a master plan I knew when the events of the Overlook occurred he was going to have they could have ramifications down down the road and it's just and I was also thinking like if they if they don't if he doesn't have ramifications from that down the road health ramifications you know am i cheating because I like you know he got dosed pretty good with some bad materials you know whatever would you say 2007 so 12 years ago you know I started thinking in recent years like what would that mean and I went to the doctors and so forth - who helped me with that book back in 2007 and I said well what could he expect now 12 10 12 years later and that was the answer so it's a good thing to have in your back pocket if you're planning to write a book in 12 years yeah dangerous exposure so Bosch is working on both cold cases and current cases and and that's been kind of what he's been doing for the last several books can you talk about the appeal and strategy for you behind writing a cold case as opposed to a current case I'm sorry yes again what the strategy the strategy and also what appeals to you about it okay well cold cases I've always appealed to me I just I just love them because to me it's a time time-travel device and you can go back in time and explore what was going on and at the city or in society at a certain time and you know I just love that aspect of it you know and and how and you can show how the world has changed or not changed and so I'm always drawn to those more than others and you know and then you know you can throw in current cases the there's a there's a current case in this book that I was just inspired to write about cuz it's based on a true story you know I changed like who was killed and so forth but the the MacGuffin if you will that Bosch figures out for him Mickey Haller it's based on the true story and I just love that so I even said okay I gotta I gotta use that in some way so that was a contemporary story and I'm always looking for the cold case and I think it's it's an interesting way to give a different rhythm and a feeling of life and variation I mean it's it's perfect for this structure well I mean your book your most recent book is awesome a bit of a time travel so and you want to talk about you know your your book and you know why you chose that that subject matter I mean I don't want to send you here you're very young and and it just seemed like it wouldn't take him a lot of research to kind of go back into the LA riots of so long ago and I'm curious about why you did that and and how you did it I'll keep this short because you're not here to say me and I swear the cold case question was not a setup [Laughter] I'm korean-american and I grew up in LA and you're right I was six at the time of the LA riots and so I only really learned about that as a subject when I was an adult I was also living in the suburbs I grew up in Encino but you know that was a time when Korean Americans were at the forefront of American racial politics for maybe the only time it was certainly the peak time for that and so as somebody who writes about korean-american la I knew that I wanted to deal with that but also I would you know the book is based on the Latasha Harlan's murder of 1991 and as I was doing research on that and deciding that would write about that you know it was I started that book in 2014 I wrote I spent four and a half years on this book I'm like very jealous so I had I had Michael sign a stack of my books in the back over there and I feel like the first the earliest of those books that was probably whose book so I'm very jealous of your output but you know it was around the time of the Michael Brown murder and the Ferguson riots and and the rise of the black lives matter movement and I just saw a lot of direct lines between early 90s Los Angeles and contemporary America and there were just so many reverberations that I really felt that I wanted to explore that and so the book is contemporary but it has deep roots in the early 90s but I feel like so does everything that we're living right now yeah I don't know similar to that when on the BAS Show we wanted to adapt a book I wrote in the 90s it was kind of a book I wrote after having experiences during the riots as a journalist and that was the book I wrote to kind of get it out of my system and now so almost 20 years later how do you adapt that to contemporary Los Angeles and it actually wasn't that hard because of the many things that the matically talk about it's all still on the table so actually as long as we're on the subject of Los Angeles you know I'm personally committed to writing about the silicon city forever and you write very very much predominantly about Los Angeles all right I don't think that's a misstatement so what if I'm from here but what is it about LA for you that keeps you coming back I mean I think it's a lot of things but it's weird I grew up in Florida but I was drawn to la by fiction mostly Raymond Chandler Ross Macdonald Joseph Juan Belle and films and so forth and so I didn't actually ever set foot in LA so I was 30 and I came for a job interview at the Times and and it was just kind of like what I thought it would be and it was you know I'd tried to write novels a couple times back in Florida it didn't work and I knew I needed to do some kind of shaking up in my life and so I came out here and and things seemed to click and so you know when things click you go back to them and so I just kind of felt that somehow la became my muse and you know as a reporter you're a quick study you learned about a city in one year what it might take someone five or six years to not learn and so that was very helpful as well and you know it's just the mixed bag in the city all the all the things that happen here it's it's you know I feel like as a writer I have a unfair advantage over writers who are you know writing about Euston or Pittsburgh or whatever in a way it's not fair I totally agree you never write of you never run out of stories to write about you never run out of neighborhoods to write about it's it's a it's endless to Florida fans ever ask you like what the hell yeah I get that question a lot I mean I had Harry Bosch go there on the case once no that was enough that should cover it [Laughter] so I wanted to ask you a little bit about TV and you know you're spending you spent a lot of time here and and I learned that I you spend a lot of time in the writers room for Bosch so you're actually like they're like working all day while creating all these novels it's really too much but congratulations on the Lincoln Lawyer series which was picked up this summer right and can you talk about your involvement in the film TV side of the Connelly Empire the that part of the Empire no I mean I've had you know good and bad luck in Hollywood over the years but when it came to Bosch you certainly the character who brought me to the table or the character I've had the most longevity and in my writing life I wasn't gonna just as I had in the past hand it off and say good luck and and invite me to the premiere I wanted I I wouldn't make any kind of deal unless I went with it and I had to say you know I don't I don't have any veto power over anything but but I have to say and you know it was lucky that it was Amazon because you know they have people that can punch a couple keys on the keyboard and figure out how many books of mine they sell and that there could be a synchronicity here so they they they they had wanted me involved so that was good I didn't have to push my way into it they said of course and so it's worked out pretty good and so I have a great gig because you know I wrote the books and no one's gonna fire me and and I can kind of come and go as I please and and and what I've chosen to do mostly is be involved in the writing I mean the filming is great and it's very egotistical to stand around and think like everybody here is here because of me but I don't I don't have anything to contribute and when it comes to camera and and telling actors to you know whatever they're doing is right or wrong I don't know enough about that but but I know about writing about Harry Bosch so so I'm usually in the writing room and that all happens you know we'll talk about you you're on TV all the writing happens long before the glamour of actually shooting anything happens so it's you know it's like a boardroom and it's like six people and some assistants and we hash it out and work out ten episodes yeah I mean I'm in a room for the first time as a staff writer and it's a lot of fun I mean it's it's so much more social than I mean actually that's that's an understatement because it's literally being in a room with the same people every day for 40 to 50 hours a week versus being alone with your dogs or maybe not even dogs for the same amount of time so it's like very polar opposites right that kind of writing yeah lifestyle like I like it it's back when I was a reporter and I was in a newsroom sometimes I was in bureaus that were smaller than what a writing room is and there's a lot of you know collegial there's pranking who's joking there's a lot of talk of what what's out there culturally and it's and it's fun and it is a big difference or a complete opposite existence from writing books where it's like you against your computer and that's it and no one can help you here you can bring up in a writing room bring up anything and and talk it out and it's fun and you're you said your daughter works on the show yeah she's your coworker sort of I never see her she works on a different building from the writing room she okay she's smart enough to stay away from right you call yourself yeah you called yourself a journalist at heart do you ever miss and reporting or do you feel like it's all in here do you feel like the scratch is the same yeah I think it does exercise the same genes but what I mean is that I don't really I know there's people that go into that room with their dogs and totally create and I don't I outside of that room I cast a big net and I spend time with the kind of people I want to write about and I get their stories and I change them a little bit but I think if I have any kind of artistic genius it's knowing how to use stuff that's real that I've gotten not created and and put it into something in an order that I know I mean it takes skill and all that stuff or Talent but it but at the end of the day I'm not making up great stuff I've seen it or I've reported it and now I'm putting it into a thing that will be called fiction I do think that is one of the most important skills you can have as a fiction writer though is the attention to detail like choosing the right details and filtering filtering in from all the world the story that you know putting - choosing the important moments and putting into this story you know if that's not fiction writing I don't really know what it is other than I guess I don't know what you're bringing over prose yeah I just I just maybe I'm an inferiority complex but I just think that there's writers out there that you know don't spend any time in the real world you just spend the time locked in a room and what they come out with is is pretty beautiful and I can read my books and go like oh I got that from here when I see him and this you know it's like that is that's what I look at when I think about my work oh you're an excellent thief some of my victims I see out there I would I think you all have some questions which you wrote down before we came up here so you're like oh minutes some of these some of these we're not going to answer have you done ride-alongs with law enforcement what was your most interesting ride I think that's for you I actually do have an answer of that yeah go ahead all right I did one I've done one ride-along I did one in Palmdale because a big portion of my new book is said in Palmdale and I don't know Palmdale and there aren't a lot of like bars or restaurants that you can go chill at so I thought it would be a good way to get to know the neighborhood in a very quick manner and it was I thought it I thought it gave me the kind of access that I wouldn't be able to have just like driving through on my own so have you done several more so how did you get it how did you get to write long did you know some home buddy or did you know a deputy your weapon no I just applied through the Palmdale you I don't know Antelope Valley share so this yeah I just like submitted this thing like because if you're a citizen you can just do it but you don't have to be worried or anything I didn't know that I've never had a ride [Applause] you've never done one and I did a lot when I was a reporter I did them all the time but but I write about detectives and they can't ride along with them you can have breakfast with them and they're always hungry but I am gonna ride along in a real really long time I did I did one ride-along this thing says any funny story or any interesting stories I remember I was in a car with a patrolman in Hollywood and we're going down Melrose in this diatonically weighs us down and so we pull over and he was already wanted was directions and then he looks at him and he goes and you're Michael Connolly so that was weird okay why did you incorporate Modesto California in the black box I mean I think that should be kind of obvious you know the story you go where the story goes and I needed Harry Bosch to go out of town I had going up there once on a I think a trip to see my brother-in-law and I loved all the pecan trees growing out of water and I just thought that was a cool visual image and behind them were the big what do you call those things that's been and make the power windows so I mean you you you live your life and you get inspired to do stuff talk about why why Palmdale I wanted to write a about a black family that lived in LA that used to live in Central Los Angeles that now lived in the exurbs because it's actually since the early 90s there's been a mass exodus of black people to the exurbs and I thought Palmdale was interesting because it's also a commuter city for LA so there are all these people out there and it's and it's very compressed income so it's all kind of lower middle class like working-class and it's 70 miles out and so we'll live there so that they can have more real estate and then come drive in every day and I thought there was a kind of dignity to that and and yeah I just I just found it interesting to write about a place that wasn't like in the middle of the action but where the main character could be pulled back in you kind of just said in that answer why I really loved your book and you know Los Angeles is probably the most written about city in all of crime fiction wouldn't you agree maybe in New York I don't know but it's it's like it's like the story place to write about and you know going back 100 years people have been writing about this place and your book had you know totally new places and new kind of sociological study of this place and so it was if that's why I really liked it as your perception or characterization of Harry Bosch altered since the most excellent adaptation premiered on Amazon no I mean cuz we've talked about this like I've been in the writing room and you know so the Bosch that's on the show I have a big hand and in you know creating or whatever you wanted to call it he's different from the guys in the books I'm he's much younger he the stories are contemporized so they that requires changes and so forth but it's weird I've been writing about Harry Potter so long that the guy I built in my head cannot be dislodged Titus Welliver is fantastic I think is Harry Bosch but when I'm writing Bosch I don't see him I see the guy then writing about since 1987 and Lee's got a gray hair now so yeah that hasn't changed a whole lot kind of added to that is and you know since you're now working on TV how do you think it does it change the way you approach novels now or will it change I know you said you just started on it but I hope not all right I would that be a bad thing because because I I like I like to think of the writers room and my little space on my couch between two dogs as very distinct areas and there's just something I don't know I think I think the I took the long I took the long way for this book and it's really the opposite of what you're doing in a writers room which is like beating the hell out of story until it would fit and I and and I actually think this is an interesting and good way to approach story writing for for television which is a visual medium but I've noticed at least in my room you know you think of like what's gonna be cool and then you write towards that and that's just never been how I write my books my books are very cool but I don't know so I want I wonder about that but actually there is stuff that I would like to take that I'm hoping will help me the structuring I think is very helpful and then there's just the kind of asking every question at every step and trying to have like you know a few people in your head challenging you at every step of the way I think that could be a positive but I don't know so far so far I haven't tried going back to novel writing yet but I hope that I can do it again and that and that whatever my new method is makes sense for me are you really being sincere when you say I hope I can do it again oh yeah absolutely yeah I don't know how I'm gonna write a novel again I I'm in that stage where where I worked so long in this book and now it's out there and I'm thinking until I have like a new idea that I get excited about it's just really daunting and I used to be I wrote three books in quick succession but they all had the same protagonist and now I'm I'm kind of staring down the blank page again and haven't been able I get back to it there's something about each novel even when I go back and read excerpts of my other ones where I think Oh like how did I actually like write that and I think I'm at that space now I'll figure it out by the way yeah her book is called your house will pay I didn't think I don't think we mentioned that right in the back okay well that this one's like what's next so you're not sure where your next is we're working on a TV show what do you want can you say what the TV show is it's a it's called crime farm for now it's it's a streaming show that'll be on the air at some undetermined future date on HBO max it'll be fun I think I think I think it's gonna be a good show it's hard for me to picture it from the scripts but I'm excited this one is I totally did I'm writing about Jack McAvoy the reporter I'm writing a book about him next and then I'm not sure when like I said before when I'll come back to Bosch or Ballard but hopefully soon okay this one is please share if you see Bosch going out the blaze of glory [Applause] I'm sensing Bosch may make an exit stage left I you know I it's weird I saw matter it's not a real person but I've bout half my life has been spent writing about the character and you know when you start a V and I had no idea you know I'd still be writing about them all these years later and so when you don't know how long it's gonna last you you know you put everything into every book you're you're writing and so by just going into it had some Oh a lot of trauma over the years and bad stuff happened and so I really think in terms of he doesn't deserve to go out in a blaze of glory he doesn't deserve to die and so I have no plans for anything like that I think at some point he'll just kind of move into the background and be and mentor Maddie or mentor Ballard or you know be around what he's needed Raymond Chandler used to say that if you ever get stuck have a woman come through I have a blind coming through the door with a gun and if I ever get stuck in the future I'll just have Bosh come through the door with a gun this is about the show again did you ask specifically for the gentleman who plays boss he doesn't seem quite right to me I actually did I did ask for tighter so I mean I shouldn't say I asked for him I threw his name into the ring because I the big you know if you read these posh books you know it's very internal and he you see the world through his eyes and that's not what you can do in a script that's what we should talk about when you move from writing books to script you know you have you use a lose a big piece of what makes a novel so interesting to write and read and that's an internal thought and you know so we were going into the show and we didn't have that anymore and you know Harry's a very internal guy and we had to find an actor who could portray you know with his eyes with his face you know his actions and so forth you know the the baggage that Harry Caray's and so I saw Titus Welliver in the show where he played a vet with PTSD and he just did it so well I I you know I didn't know anything else about him basically and I put his name into the Hat you know basically when we were talking about casting and eventually he got the job so and his name had not been in the Hat till I said that so I was kind of proud about that and this and this book is dedicated to him what's up this book is dedicated to him yeah yeah about time I guess I should dedicate that thing he's kept a show going for five years now how did you decide to give Bosch a troubled childhood you know when you're creating character more normal character is the harder is a write-back character I think and make that character someone who connects with readers I mean we're all pretty normal but we usually read about people who have some kind of deficiency or some kind of troubled past or something haunting them and and and that's how we connect as readers to these characters yes no yeah no I agree I mean I think no character comes out in crisis you know and and and you can give depth to characters by just speeding up on them and I have I have found that with my books that certainly my characters are more trouble than I am and and it gives them and it gives them wait to I think if there's something about having some comma or something in their history that that like really anchors them to the world in a way that readers can recognize will bachelors daughter ever work together yeah no that's the best journalist in me that you know and the decision I made a long time ago to have everything move in real time and I want Bosch and Maddie to work together but it's too soon I want her to have some experience she's only 22 in the books right now and I think she has to make her more interesting she has to live life some have some experience have some disappointments and these things I haven't gotten into with her and if I tried to write about them on an equal footing Bosch with just overshadow her too much so that's something I got you know economy in my back pocket and in the meantime I have Ballard kind of filling that role of Bosch passing the baton to somebody but the times get passed again and again so hopefully down the road I'm still writing and and we'll see that story I really look forward to it so this is the basic and you can answer this one because I've already answered it what was what are your influences inspirations in your characters you know I covered all that with where Ballard comes from and where Bosch comes from and what about you you know funny thing I also started writing because of Raymond Chandler I think la man you just have to tangle with Raymond Chandler it's just he's so dominant and that's how I got into crime fiction I read The Big Sleep when I was in college and I just wanted to have a conversation with this guy who wrote about my city and I wanted to write about my city the way that he did and that's kind of how I got in you know this book is a little different it's not a it's not a mystery it's a crime novel but the actually the book that had the most influence on this one is probably Southland by Nina revoir it's an excellent excellent novel that that covers the Crenshaw district between the 1930s in the 1990s and it centers on on four deaths during the Watts rebellion and it's really good and it alternates actually between black man's point of view and a japanese-american woman's point of view and and she's just a really great writer yeah I think reading about Los Angeles reading a lot of crime novels you know I love I love Michael's novels I love Richard Price like I read widely in the genre and I I steal a little bit from everybody too even if I don't even if it doesn't come out directly in the in the writing so this next one's just a comment but since we're in the neighborhood it says Bosh needs to try Casa Bianca the next time he is an Eagle Rock I think that was from the owner of Cass of the auction and the last question the right work done right closing then what is the name of your favorite restaurant in LA and what is your favorite dish do you have yeah you know we'll probably make people upset but I'm a meat-eater so I'd say Dan Tana's and the steak Helen which is the small steak I love Korean food so off the top of my head John one day you and wo n - it's a restaurant in Koreatown they have a really fantastic braised cod that's spicy that's and that I really loved when my mom made it when I was growing up but that's just my spur-of-the-moment answer I'm sure I'll regret it and especially when they see your name attached to a blurb at the restaurant let's try this place Cobb God okay all right I think we covered everything that we have in our time allowed and [Applause]

Channel: Pasadena Media

Views: 3,412

Rating: 4.9215684 out of 5

Keywords: pasadena

Id: 8KgvPardBrg

Length: 59min 23sec (3563 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 28 2019