Harry Bosch: Alive and Well(ish) in Michael Connelly’s new novel, ‘Resurrection Walk’

On the evening of December 5, Hachette Book Group sponsored a live session over the video platform, Crowdcast with best-selling crime fiction author Michael Connelly, in conversation with his editor, Asya Muchnick. The subject was Connelly’s new novel, Resurrection Walk, a legal thriller, a Lincoln Lawyer book featuring defense attorney Mickey Haller. But, about forty percent of it also includes Haller’s half-brother, former LAPD Detective Harry Bosch. Bosch is a Vietnam War veteran and there’s more than one allusion to his service as a tunnel rat in the war in this novel, though the subject did not come up during the online discussion.

The Lincoln Lawyer gets his name from the fact that he uses the backseat of his car (a Lincoln) as his office while he has someone else do the driving. In this book, Bosch is working part-time for Haller and assumes the job of his driver. “It just occurred to me that if I could find a legit way of making Harry be his driver, and want to be his driver because that’s the key part of it, it could be pretty interesting,” Connelly said in the Crowdcast interview. “Those two guys in a car together and in a closed environment, but through their windows they’re seeing the city they both love and kind of love from different angles. So I went down that path and as I began writing Harry got a bigger and bigger part. He kind of grew his part on his own. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of this before. It’s pretty cool.”

He said that while writing legal fiction “you can end up in a box in the courtroom. I try to make it happen a different way each time. The Lincoln Lawyer had never done a federal case before, that’s new. And he had a client who’s already been convicted.”

Connelly said his Lincoln Lawyer books require more research than the Bosch books and LAPD detective Renee Ballard series. “I just want to get stuff right,” he said, “because of legal stuff.” He went on about the research, “It’s not drudgery at all. I really like being in courtrooms.” He also has a handful of close lawyer he uses as legal technical advisers. If they happen to tell him one of his courtroom incidents is not plausible, he’ll tell them, “I need it to happen, so figure out how I can make it happen.”

Mickey Haller “is new school, with his gloss and his glitz,” Connelly said. “Harry’s old school. He’s a round peg in a square hole. The Cherokee he drives is basically a square car.”

Connelly said he was surprised by how people took the ending of the previous book 2022’s, Desert Star co-starring Bosh and Ballard. “Maybe I was too heavy-handed on that.” He said he never thought about that book being the last of Bosch series, adding, ”This book could be called New Hope For Harry.”

A you can get the link to the recording of the December conversation by emailing  janed@michaelconnelly.com

–Bill McCloud

December 17, 2023

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