Closer Than You Think

Michael Connelly may live in Florida and write about a tough L.A. cop, but his roots are planted in Philly.

by Duane Swierczynski

Being the obsessive geek that I am, when I started reading mysteries, I decided to make a list of local mystery authors, with the goal of sampling at least one novel from each. Sadly, the list wasn't terribly long. There are a few semi-famous names (Scottoline, Dexter), some semi-obscure cult faves (Goodis, McGivern, Spicer, Shubin), some modern-day notables (Kent, Lashner, Flander) and, well, not too many others. Where is our mystery superstar? Detroit has Leonard. Florida has Hiaasen. Christ, even Boston has Lehane, and D.C. has Pelecanos. Where's our guy?

I'm fudging a bit, but I'd like to nominate Michael Connelly.

True, Connelly's long-running, best-selling series about Los Angeles homicide detective Harry (short for Hieronymus) Bosch is set far from the mean streets of Philadelphia. But Connelly did spend his formative years here. "I grew up in places like Wayne, Berwyn, Devon — until I was 11 years old," says Connelly, sitting in the ornate lobby of the Michelangelo Hotel in Manhattan, here to promote The Closers (Little, Brown, $26.95), the 11th Bosch novel. "It was a suburban life, though my dad did take us to the Mummers Parade." (I'd argue that exposure to Mummery at an early age can do strange things to an impressionable young mind.)

Connelly's family is still here, too — he has, by his own count, "24 cousins" living in the Philadelphia area. "We still meet up in the Pocono Mountains for our family reunions," says Connelly, 48. And if you live in Paoli or Coldbrook Farms, there's a chance you're living in one of the homes that Connelly's real estate developer father built in the 1950s.

OK, maybe it's just wishful thinking, but Connelly is a writer Philadelphia should be proud to call its own. His novels are moody thrillers steeped in impressive police procedural detail — grounded by Connelly's years covering crime for a newspaper in Fort Lauderdale, and later, the Los Angeles Times. Even though he left journalism 10 years ago, Connelly's still very much on the beat, taking frequent trips to visit friends in the LAPD to nail down a forensic detail or two. "Many cops feel misunderstood," says Connelly, which at times made it tough for him to cover the police. "It took a long time for me to get my foot in the door." But now, as a novelist, "A lot of cops see merit in the character, and are happy to help."

That character is series hero Bosch, a Vietnam Vet and a current member of the LAPD's cold case squad (in Bosch's world, it's called the "open-unsolved unit"). But that's a relatively new assignment. Recent installments in the series have seen Bosch quit the force in disgust (City of Bones), try his hand at private investigating (Lost Light) and serial killer-catching (The Narrows, last year's semi-sequel to his stand-alone novels, The Poet and Blood Work -- the latter of which became a Clint Eastwood movie).

"The key word to describe Bosch is relentless," says Connelly. "He's the guy I'd want investigating the case if a loved one were to end up on a slab." In The Closers, the person on the slab is a 16-year-old girl whose 1988 murder is suddenly reinvestigated thanks to a recent leap in DNA technology. But it's no simple matter of hoping the blood sample will match a name in an FBI lab somewhere and soon, Bosch is wondering why he was accepted back to the LAPD so easily.

I asked Connelly if The Closers is the best place to jump in to the world of Harry Bosch — after all, it is the 11th book in a series. "I think so," says Connelly. "If someone were to ask my father to show him examples of his work, he wouldn't take them to the first house he built."

Right now, Connelly is embarking on a multi-city Closers tour (if it's Thursday, he's in Phoenix). There is, however, a glaring omission on the list: no Philadelphia. This isn't Connelly's fault; his publisher sets the tour agenda. But if we're going to make a serious claim on this guy, I say it's time to start rattling cages.

"I don't know how many readers I have in Philly," Connelly jokes. "For all I know, it's just my 24 cousins."