For almost 40 years, Michael Connelly has shown readers the grit and grime behind the glamorous veneer of the City of Angels; first as an award-winning newspaper reporter then as inarguably one of the greatest crime novelists of recent decades, setting a high bar across nearly 40 novels, many featuring iconic detective Hieronymus ‘Harry’ Bosch.
As the excellent Bosch: Legacy streaming adaptation finishes its run, Connelly continues to expand his fictional universe. Nightshade introduces a new hero, and new setting. Thanks to department politics and a great ability to step on the wrong toes, LA County Sheriff’s Detective Stilwell has swapped homicide investigations on the mainland for low-key policing on rustic Catalina Island, a land of exiles and misfit toys. But when the body of an unidentified young woman is pulled from the bottom of the harbour, Stilwell can’t resist encroaching on the investigation. Risking his career, and more, to uncover the truth.
As with a brilliant guitarist performing onstage, who makes things seem far easier than they are, there is a deceptive effortlessness to Connelly’s storytelling that belies the high level of craft. Nightshade unfolds in a smooth narrative, speckled with telling details about character and place, incorporated with practised ease into an intriguing, page-turning mystery. Another terrific read from an exceptional storyteller.
Reviewed by Craig Sisterson
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Connelly was born in Philadelphia, PA on July 21, 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 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 specialising 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.
Michael is the bestselling author of over 40 novels. With over 89 million copies of his books sold worldwide and translated into 45 foreign languages, he is one of the most successful writers working today.
He is also the executive producer of both Bosch and Bosch: Legacy TV series, and The Lincoln Lawyer.
His very first novel, The Black Echo, won the prestigious Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 1992. In 2002, Clint Eastwood directed and starred in the movie adaptation of Connelly’s 1998 novel, Blood Work.
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