Ali | Thanks for taking the time to talk to Shots Ezine on the eve of the release of The Narrows. How’s life in Florida been treating you? |
Mike | So far it has been good. I think it has helped my creativity and my writing being away from Los Angeles, but all the while writing about it.
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Ali
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Congratulations on winning the Barry Award and the Anthony Award at Bouchercon Vegas for City of Bones, very well deserved - what happened with the pulling out of Lost Light from the Edgars?
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Mike
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I tried to pull it out before it was in. I had sent word to my publisher not to submit the book for consideration since I was president of the Mystery Writers of America. They said fine but little did we all know it had already been submitted. So when it was named to be on the short-list I was aghast and had it pulled. I just don’t think even the perception of favouritism should be allowed and if the book were to win there would always be whispers.
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Ali | One of the many highlights of Bouchercon Vegas was listening to you and James Lee Burke shoot the breeze. Your dry wit and his infectious laughter filled the auditorium with a great atmosphere. Did you and he get together before the event or was it all spontaneous? |
Mike | It was completely spontaneous and nerve wracking. We did get together afterward and had a great meal. There is always good food in Vegas. |
Ali | I told you one of my highlights of Bouchercon Vegas, so would you care to tell us one of yours? |
Mike |
Well, I guess they were the same. I came to do one thing and that was interview James Lee Burke. We have talked on the phone on occasion over the years but it is hard to knock down the wall of feeling intimidated when you are in your hero’s presence. That is how I feel with Jim. So I was quite nervous but it turned out well and that made it a highlight. The highlight within the highlight came when a member of the audience, a woman of Cajun descent, stood up and said some really wonderful things about his work. It was obviously a great moment for Jim Burke but it was really a wonderful moment for those of us who write in this genre because it underlined how powerful a book can be and how meaningful. |
Ali | Las Vegas as a backdrop features heavily in a lot of your work, so what do you see as the appeal of the green tables and bright lights to the crime novelist today? |
Mike | We’re all looking for the place where anything can happen, anything good or bad. Las Vegas seems to be at the nadir of this sense of randomness. I think the things about it that draw visitors also draw writers. |
Ali | I was somewhat disappointed by the film version of Blood Work as were many of your fans. Can you tell us where you felt the film went wrong? |
Mike | I had a good experience in the development and making of the film. The final product was a bit disappointing because I think the changes they chose to make-different bad guy, different ending-made it suffer from obviousness and logic difficulties. I would not have been disappointed by these changes simply because they were changes. I do not hold my work up to the idea that it cannot be changed. Change is expected in the transition from page to screen. I just think these changes were detrimental to the story. On the other hand there were things I loved and as I said, the overall experience was quite good. |
Ali | I know that in your early period formulating Harry Bosch, the Dirty Harry character created by Harry and Rita Fink was one of many parts of an amalgam including James Ellroy et al. So when Clint Eastwood took the reins of Blood Work (even though it was not a Bosch novel), did it make your day? |
Mike | It did indeed make my day because Harry Callahan was very influential on Harry Bosch. |
Ali | Lost Light takes Harry Bosch down a whole new set of channels. Why did you decide to move Harry away from the LAPD? |
Mike | The only constant in a series should be change. It was time for a big change. It coincided with a big change in my own life. I was thinking that if I was turning my own world upside down I should at least do the same for Harry Bosch. |
Ali | What did your publishers say when you indicated the changes you were going to make in the Harry Bosch series? |
Mike | Not a lot. I operate pretty autonomously. I probably didn’t tell anyone until I finished the book and turned it in. Now, if I was going to kill Harry Bosch I might run that by them ahead of time. |
Ali | Many writers who spend a lot of their lives with a series character fall a little bit in love with their creations; perhaps Thomas Harris did in Hannibal, and Patricia Highsmith certainly did with Tom Ripley. With Bosch, I don’t see it that way? |
Mike | Mostly it’s a fascination. I am now writing my 11th novel with Harry Bosch in it and there is still much to cover and to figure out about him. He is more intriguing to me than anyone I know outside of my daughter. |
Ali | So what was it like to really get into his head in Lost Light? |
Mike | It was a lot of fun and it was very interesting. When you move into first person narration you have to knock down all the walls and go deep inside. It really energized me. I think it energized the series. |
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Ali
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In the UK, The Poet was your break-through book, but looking back, why do you think it became such a hit in the UK? Was it the popularity of the serial killer genre in general or was it something else? The Anthony Award? The story? The great cover?
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Mike |
It was probably all of that. It was also, and probably most importantly, not part of a series. It was a stand-alone thriller and the publishing industry generally knows how to take them to market. Another thing was that it was about a journalist. Therefore, it got a lot of media attention with journalists curious about how an ex-journalist would do writing a novel about a journalist.
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Ali | Despite being around for so many years, what do you put the perennial appeal of the serial killer in the crime fiction genre down to? |
Mike | Generally, these novels have the highest stakes in the game. The repeat killer, the randomness of victim selection, the nobody’s safe milieu. It all makes for some major tension and a fast moving story. |
Ali | We hear that your next book The Narrows - pits Harry Bosch against the Poet. And I hear Terry McCaleb, Rachel Walling and even Cassie Black make appearances, so how did this come about and why did it take so damned long? |
Mike | It took so long because for years I didn’t want to write a follow up to The Poet. It then started to bother me that in my fictional universe I had let a killer get away, it didn’t matter that in reality killers get away all the time. It started to bother me that in the universe I controlled that I had set this killer loose. So I decided to rectify the situation and I put my best guy-Bosch-on the case. |
Ali | For newer readers of your work, will it be necessary to read The Poet first before embarking on the journey detailed in The Narrows? |
Mike | I don’t think so. It is a complete story. It is self-contained. Yes, there are references to the Poet’s history but anything you need to know is contained in The Narrows. It might make for a fuller reading experience if you know about these characters in the earlier presentation, but it is not necessary. |
Ali | Have you ever thought about bringing Bosch to, say, Scotland and him sharing a pint with Rebus, or perhaps him zipping down to Washington and arm wrestling Derek Strange? Or is the politics of publishing too complex to consider a crossover? |
Mike | More like the ego of writing. I greatly admire and love the work of Pelecanos and Rankin but it would be hard to write a book with anybody. I wouldn’t want anyone one else to speak for Harry Bosch or write him, and I wouldn’t dare risk speaking for or writing Strange or Rebus. I think the best cross pollination you are going to get is the little cameo appearances of characters like Robert Crais and I did in are last books. If you blinked you missed it. |
Ali | So what’s with all the secrecy surrounding The Narrows? No review copies? When are we going to see it in the UK? And are we going to get it before the US? And the rest of the world? |
Mike | It should be a simultaneous publication. It might be a week later in the UK since I don’t get there to promote it until late May. But I’m not sure. The secrecy is rather simple in that I didn’t want the subject matter in the book to be discussed on the internet for months before the book was out. I think it has a negative effect on the book. I have asked my publisher for years to stop putting out gallies. It was only now that I got them to do it. |
Ali | The video preview for The Narrows on your website was very enigmatic and provokes more questions than it answered about the forthcoming book. Can you tell us why you decided to tease the fans with this short movie? Did Jane Davis, your webmaster, come up with the idea? |
Mike | It came out of a larger and longer film I was making for my US publisher as a promotion. We decided to shoot something only about The Narrows to possibly help make up for the lack of gallies. Obviously, with the film we could control what information went out early. |
Ali | Come on Michael, many Shots readers are big and longstanding fans, so please tell us more about The Narrows, the whole idea of Bosch battling the Poet is so cool! |
Mike
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Bosch is still a PI in this book. So there are two narratives. One is Bosch taking a private assignment to look into the death of a woman’s husband. It leads him to the Mojave desert at the California-Nevada border. The second narrative goes through FBI agent Rachel Walling who has been called to Las Vegas because the Poet has resurfaced. Her investigation leads her to the Mojave where she crosses paths with Bosch. From that point the narrative blends together as they go after the Poet together. |
Ali | You have been with Orion in the UK for a number of years, and their list just gets better and better. What do you put down to their success in (a) attracting the top US and UK talent and (b) their sales success? |
Mike | They know talent and they know what they are doing. They simply want to have the best line up of crime writers and they actually do have a very respectable murderers row. Of course, whoever has Ian Rankin has a respectable line up no matter who else they add. |
Ali | Ian Rankin also has an important detective - John Rebus. So what is the appeal of long-standing male loner maverick cops? |
Mike | The odds are against them yet they are relentless. I think we all hope there is something of us in a character like this. Yes, they all have personal difficulties and obstacles of bureaucracy and politics in front of them but, at the end of the day, who would you want working the case if it was you or one of your loved ones on the slab? |
Ali | You have a short story in John Harvey’s terrific Men from Boys collection. Can you tell us how you got the call and why short story collections seem to be making a comeback? |
Mike | John’s a friend of mine and another writer whose work I love and respect. So when he came calling with this particular theme I could not resist. |
Ali | Talking about short stories - I see you are the editor for the Otto Penzler Best American Mystery Stories 2003. How much work did this entail? And how much fun was is to select from such a bumper crop of work? |
Mike | It was both a lot of work and a lot of fun. But not as much work as you might think. I did not have to read every short story written during the year. Otto Penzler is the first reader and he knocks it down to about 80 stories to read. I chose from them. And that was tough because every story that gets past Otto is a pretty good read. |
Ali | Your work is published in all formats, limited edition, hardcover, trade and paperback, audiobook CD/tape, ebook etc. As a percentage in terms of sales, how important is the growing audio and ebook markets? |
Mike | I can’t give you a percentage other than to say audiobooks are already big and growing rapidly. The ebook side of it is still on the rise. Without statistics to back this up I just look at my own life. I “listen” to as many books as I read. |
Ali | My friend and fellow crime fiction enthusiast Jon Jordan [www.booksnbytes.com/jon_jordan/interrogations.html] sent me your Dark Sacred Night cd as it was not available in the UK. How did this come about? And are we going to get another one for The Narrows? |
Mike |
That was nice of him to send it-that means he violated the law, not me. Seriously, though, the idea for the cd came from a friend in the music business who told me he could get me the rights to the music. Jane Davis from my website took it from there. The only disappointment was that we were not able to afford or get world rights and that is why it was only distributed in the US. No cd with The Narrows but the film I was making for my US publisher will be distributed on dvd. Again there is a rights situation with the music on it. So there will be no widespread distribution around the world. |
Ali | It’s been a couple of years since we last saw you; when we sat in a basement office in Borders Oxford when my tape machine fought against the damned tannoy…. When are we likely to see you back in the UK? |
Mike | The last week in May. Be there or be square. |
Ali | After The Narrows is it more Bosch or have you a stand-alone planned? |
Mike | I’m working on a Bosch. About halfway finished. Working title: Blue Religion. |
Ali | I know you are an advocate of British crime fiction so what have you enjoyed since we last saw you in the UK? |
Mike | Mark Billingham sort of hit the scene since then. Hit it big. Denise Mina is a new discovery with me and I just read Tokyo by Mo Hayder which is a very powerful book. It really stuck with me for a long while. And then of course the big guns; McDermid, Rankin, Robinson and Harvey. You can’t go wrong there. |
Ali | Michael - always a pleasure to hear your insight, even though you are torturing the fans waiting for The Narrows - Bosch battles the Poet………….Seriously, we know how busy you are, and so we really appreciate having you at Shots again - we are all looking forward to The Narrows! See you this summer! |
Mike | Thanks for the opportunity to talk. |
Let’s get one thing out of the way first. I am a long-time follower of the works of Michael Connelly. Now that’s sorted, let’s talk about one of the longest awaited books of 2004.
Over the years, I wondered every so often about the Poet and what he’d been up to since we met up with him in 1996.
