My First Read By Michael Connelly

Almost thirty years ago. I lived far from the Los Angeles his story took place in.

 In a kinder, gentler city - well, then, anyway. Not sure about now for any city.

So I got a crime thriller from the local library. I have always loved libraries! I would need one of those floor-to-ceiling libraries at home, the kind with the rolling ladder, if I bought all the books I have read.

 I started the book, a paperback novel, and barely survived the first page. Gritty, down and dirty crime scene. And oh my the crime! And the details!

 No, I had not experienced this level of violence, nor descriptions of! I'm quite sure I suddenly had something to do...And resumed the book a few days later.

I got drawn in. The post-crime scene tedious functions of the detective Harry Bosch, calmed my shocked mind. Not that the novel was tedious, but the form-filling, detail reporting to the captain, documenting overtime -- that helped me stick with the story.

 Kind of like anyone's job, right? The sturm und drang so to speak.

A lot of years went by before I read another Harry Bosch novel by Michael Connelly. I had moved to Los Angeles County.

I had watched the six o'clock news for a while - the Los Angeles news. I became acclimated.

I was actually driving down to LAX airport to pick someone up and had to stop for directions, one normal day. The car dealership I pulled into was closing. A kind black man gave me directions to the airport adding -- "and ma'am I don't l know what you're doing out here right now."

He eyed my toddler, strapped into the car seat in the back. I was puzzled.

I didn't know that while I was heading along Century Blvd. into LAX, that rioters were shooting at the planes that were landing!

I didn't know that the Rodney King verdict had come out and that the city was being assaulted by the offended black community.

I picked up my friend, and he opted to drive back. We decided to go up PCH, through Santa Monica and up along the ocean. Instead of going past Inglewood where tremendous emotional pain and rage was playing out.

We turned on the radio (I never had it on because I liked to talk to my child when driving) and realized what was happening!

I think that was the first time I registered that I was now in the town of Harry Bosch, a wonderful complex character created by Michael Connelly. Yup, I am here, where I am.

And yet, it was probably a few years later that I checked another book by him out of the library. "The Poet".

I was fascinated by computers, and computer crime. And I've read it again.

And since then, I have read every Michael Connolly novel, in sequence.

Amazing, the City of Angels... So wonderful, so mixed up, so light and so dark.

Yet Michael Connolly has that amazing talent, he's kind of like the Impressionist painters -- with a palette of dashes and dots, that you can step back from, relax the focus of your eyes.

And everything is perfectly clear.