Forty books into a career that has played out on pages and screens, Michael Connelly has finally landed on a title that encapsulates it all: The Waiting.
At its most superficial level, The Waiting: A Ballard and Bosch Novel (October 15, 2024; Little, Brown and Company) references the book’s opening scene, in which surfer detective Renée Ballard is literally waiting on her wave to come in. But it’s also perfectly indicative of the work Ballard does as head of the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit, in which cold cases (such as the decades-dormant “Pillowcase Rapist” investigation) have the potential to heat up with fresh eyes and new evidence. On a larger scale, the title applies to the fulfillment of a longstanding promise: the author’s intent to bring Harry Bosch’s daughter, patrol cop Maddie Bosch, fully into the fold—here, as a volunteer in Ballard’s squad whose presence reignites interest in the Black Dahlia murder.
Connelly—whose desire to write crime fiction began with his discovery of Raymond Chandler around age nineteen—knows a thing or two about the waiting himself. Before trying his hand at novels, he spent fourteen years as a journalist, first in Florida (where he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize) and then as a newspaper reporter in Los Angeles, where he mostly wrote about violent offenses, the investigating police officers, and the alleged perpetrators. Many of those cases were recounted in his 2006 nonfiction collection, Crime Beat: A Decade of Covering Cops and Killers. Those years illuminated a fundamental truth: Justice, like many things, doesn’t always come swiftly (if it comes at all)—but when it does, there is little greater satisfaction.
Since making the transition from fact to fiction, Connelly—whose work is grounded in the gritty, gray-shaded realities of law and (dis)order—has sold more than eighty-five million copies of his books worldwide. His Edgar Award-winning debut, The Black Echo (1992), introduced LAPD homicide detective (and Vietnam veteran) Harry Bosch, who has since featured in twenty-five novels, including crossovers with “Lincoln Lawyer” Mickey Haller and his more recent protégé, Renée Ballard. Both Bosh and The Lincoln Lawyer have received the TV treatment to robust ratings and rave reviews (with the latter also adapted as a feature film) while Ballard is currently in production for future release. And Connelly has been there from the start, helping to shape his beloved characters’ on-screen personas as an executive producer and contributing writer.
It would seem, then, that the waiting was well worth it.
John B. Valeri: Your new Ballard and Bosch novel is titled The Waiting, in reference to an old Tom Petty song. What spoke to you about the lyric – and how do you see its sentiment befitting your central characters’ personal and professional circumstances?
Michael Connelly: I like titles that mean different things at different times of the book. The book opens with Ballard waiting for a wave to ride. Then there is the waiting for lab results and the excruciating wait for justice that families of victims go through when the case goes cold. So all of these things add up to The Waiting. While I am a big fan of Tom Petty, the idea of referencing the song came after the decision to call the book The Waiting. The reference to the song just helps to hammer home the theme.
JBV: Renée is a former Robbery-Homicide detective who now heads the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit, which isn’t as prestigious an assignment but one that allows her a greater degree of autonomy. In what ways does this enhance her abilities to work beyond the letter of the law – and how do you endeavor to balance procedural accuracy with creative liberties for the purposes of storytelling?
MC: What governs my thinking when it comes to Ballard is the idea that she is driven by many aspects of her character to pursue cases wherever they go. As homicide detectives have told me, “It goes where it goes.” So this to me has made Ballard what I call a one-foot character. She may push things to the legal limit and may step one foot over the line, but she never steps all the way across it.
JBV: The Unit’s investigation into a dormant serial offender known as the “Pillowcase Rapist” is not only compelling but has serious consequences. In non-spoilery terms, please talk about your approach to maintaining a realistic sense of danger (or mortality) as a series ages. Why is it important to do so – and how much consideration do you give to potential reader response, if any?
MC: I’ll take this backwards. I always listen to reader response because I think that is important information to have. But at the same time, I am driving this car and ultimately decide where it’s going. I try to be as realistic as possible in the writing of these books. Cold cases are wonderful because they are time travel books. They take you from the contemporary to a point back in time where something very bad has happened and that gives me the chance to explore two periods of time. The catch is that with cold cases the suspect is dead, in prison, or may be alive but living below the radar. That third aspect can provide the much-needed element of danger that you really need in a fictional crime story. Danger increases the stakes for Ballard and hopefully the pulse rate of the reader.
JBV: Here, Renée has the opportunity to work with both Harry Bosch and his daughter, Maddie (albeit separately). Tell us about the relationship dynamics at play between the three, given their complex histories. How has Maddie’s relationship with Harry evolved – and in what ways does this inform her approach to interacting with Maddie?
MC: I have waited a long time — the waiting! — to bring Maddie along to a place where she is old enough and wise enough through life experiences to be believable as an investigator. This sort of gets jump-started in this book with her stumbling on to something she knows, because of her growing up the daughter of a detective, is important. This allows me to put her into the same circle with Harry and Renee. That was the fun part of writing this book. I think it portends to an evolving of the relationship with her father and now Ballard and I think there will be more of that in the future.
JBV: Maddie brings evidence to the Unit that sheds new light on one of L.A.’s most notorious cold cases: the infamous Black Dahlia murder. What is your own interest in the crime – and did you find that examining it through the lens of fiction brought any level of clarity or closure to what otherwise remains a mystery?
MC: Like most people who live in LA, I have a fascination with this horrible crime that has gone unsolved for 75 years. It’s clear it will never be solved. I could have left it alone, but I write about L.A. and I write crime fiction that is very reflective of real life in this city. It occurred to me that I have spent 30 years writing about this city and have never explored its most notorious unsolved case. I decided I should somehow get into it and use a fictional take that doesn’t conflict with the known facts of the case. Ballard is inspired by Mitzi Roberts who was a cold case detective until her retirement earlier this year. For almost 20 years she was the keeper of the Black Dahlia case and so I was able to run my ideas by her and make sure they jibed with the facts.
JBV: One of your earliest and most profound literary influences was Raymond Chandler. How did the discovery of his works help to open your mind to the possibilities of a career in writing? Are there contemporary writers who inspire you still today?
MC: I was a voracious reader of crime fiction but never thought about writing it until I read Chandler when I was about nineteen. His prose was so eye opening. Very literary, very cynical, and very much about making the city as important a character as his protagonist Marlowe. That really turned my head and changed my path. There are many writers out there who I revere and take inspiration from. Probably too many to mention but a few are James Lee Burke, Michael Koryta, Jordan Harper, S.A. Cosby, Joyce Carol Oates, I could go on and on.
JBV: You studied both creative writing and journalism, covering the crime beat before turning your attention to novels. What have you found to be the intersection point(s) between these disciplines – and how has seeing violence and its aftermath up close allowed you to render crime and (in)justice not only for the readers’ entertainment but enlightenment?
MC: It was really an amazing 14 years that I spent as a reporter, all but a few years on the crime beat. It’s the foundation of all I do, not only because it gave me insight into aspects of the justice system, but it taught me to write. There are a lot of commonalities between the two disciplines, even though one is fiction, and one is not. To start with, I got a write-everyday work ethic from my days in the newsroom. I got an ear for dialogue. And I got a writing style that holds that less is more and that momentum in reading can only be matched by momentum in writing. So while I was a reporter, I had a finite length I had to write any story to, I still write short sentences and I hone everything down to what the message of every sentence is. It creates a momentum in my novels that is key.
JBV: You have been heavily involved in several of the small screen adaptations of your books (as an executive producer and collaborative writer). Do you allow the characters’ on-screen selves to creep into the books or do they somehow remain separate? Also, tell us how you’ve found the writers’ room to compare to the more solitary nature of crafting novels.
MC: I think there is definitely a boomerang effect. The shows are based on my characters but new aspects in them emerge as a room of writers puts together the show. That has to rub off some on me. I think the one notable place is the expansion of secondary characters. The shows have taken that further than in the books and I find myself sometimes trying to catch up. A writing room for a television show reminds me of being in a newsroom. A lot of comradery, joking, pranking, esprit de corps. It has really reminded me of those days working for a newspaper and feeling a good purpose to the work.
JBV: Leave us with a teaser: What comes next, both on page and on screen?
MC: We are almost finished filming a season of Ballard and hopefully that will be coming out next year. We have the last season of Bosch: Legacy coming in March, and on the book front, I’ll have a summer book next year called Nightshade about the lone detective assigned to investigate crime on Catalina Island. In the fall, I’ll follow that with a Lincoln Lawyer book.
