Michael Connelly decided to become a writer after discovering the books of Raymond Chandler while attending the University of Florida.
After graduating in 1980, Connelly worked at newspapers in Florida, primarily specializing 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 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, and bringing him to the city of which his literary hero, Chandler, had written.
After three years on the crime beat in L.A., Connelly began writing his first novel to feature LAPD Detective Hieronymus Bosch. The novel,
The Black Echo (1992), was based in part on a true crime that had occurred in Los Angeles, and won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel by the Mystery Writers of America. Connelly followed up with three more Bosch books,
The Black Ice, The Concrete Blonde and
The Last Coyote,
before publishing
The Poet in 1996–a thriller with a newspaper reporter as a protagonist. In 1997, he went back to Bosch with
Trunk Music, and in 1998 another non-series thriller,
Blood Work, was published. The
movie adaptation of Blood Work was released in 2002, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood.
Connelly's next book
Angels Flight (1999), was another entry in the Harry Bosch series. The non-series novel
Void Moon (2000) introduced a new character, Cassie Black, a high-stakes Las Vegas thief. His 2001 release,
A Darkness More Than Night, united Harry Bosch with Terry McCaleb from
Blood Work, and was named one of the Best Books Of The Year by the Los Angeles Times.
In 2002, Connelly released two novels. The first, the Harry Bosch book
City Of Bones, was named a Notable Book Of The Year by the
New York Times. The second release was a stand-alone thriller,
Chasing The Dime, which was named one of the Best Books Of The Year by the
Los Angeles Times.
Lost Light (2003) was named one of the Best Books of 2003 by the
Los Angeles Times. It is another in the Harry Bosch series but the first written in first person. Connelly's 2004 novel,
The Narrows, is the sequel to
The Poet. It was named one of the Best Books of 2004 by the
Los Angeles Times.
Connelly's 15th book, the Harry Bosch novel
The Closers, was released in May 2005, and was Michael's first # 1
New York Times bestseller. In The Closers, Harry returns to the LAPD and Michael returns to writing in third person.
Michael's most recent book,
The Lincoln Lawyer, (Oct 2005) is Michael's first legal thriller.
www.michaelconnelly.com
Leslie S. Klinger is considered one of the world's foremost authorities on Sherlock Holmes. He is the editor of the three volume collection of the short stories and novels:
The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, which W.W. Norton & Company will complete with the publication of the third volume November 2005. The first two volumes, collecting the entire 56 stories, were published to great critical acclaim in November 2005 and won an Edgar Award for Best Critical/Biographical Work.
Klinger has written numerous articles on Sherlockiana, as well as the books
The Life and Times of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, John H. Watson, M.D., Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Other Notable Personages, and (with Andrew Jay Peck) the revised edition of
The Date Being?: A Compendium of Sherlockian Chronologies. He has taught several courses at UCLA on "Sherlock Holmes and His World."
In 1998, the first volume of Klinger's award-winning Sherlock Holmes Reference Library was published by Gasogene Books. Aimed at the serious student of Sherlock Holmes, the Reference Library will be completed in 2006.
The Baker Street Journal concluded, "There is no doubt that Klinger's work when done will become the standard text of reference for all serious Sherlockians."
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Klinger received an A.B. in English from the University of California at Berkeley, followed by a J.D. from Boalt Hall (School of Law, UC Berkeley). Since then, he has lived in Los Angeles, pursuing a legal career in tax estate and business planning. Klinger is a member of the Baker Street Irregulars and also serves as the Series Editor for the Manuscript Series of The Baker Street Irregulars.
www.lesliesklinger.com
