Connelly had landed on a system that worked for him. another
episode in the Bosch series. and then another stand alone.
his seventh novel continued his hot streak. BLOOD WORK, about
a former FBI agent who receives a heart transplant and then
solves the murder of the woman who donated it was the first
and so far only one of the author's extremely cinematic tales
to be adapted to the big screen. but the film directed by and
starring Clint Eastwood didn't live up to the excellence of
Connelly's thriller. in an interview for SHOTS e-zine in
2004, the author expressed his generally positive experience
in the making of the film, but correctly pinpointed its
problems as "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."
ANGELS FLIGHT, the 6th in the Bosch series was next. and it
was clear that the happiness and hope Connelly had bestowed
on his creation was to be short lived. the melancholy the
detective feels as his personal life unravels is palpable and
heartbreaking, yet emotionally satisfying for the reader. the
sad turn also insured that the series wouldn't be settling
into domestic stagnation as the character aged in real
time
VOID MOON, Connelly's next stand alone took him in a new, if
not necessarily better direction. featuring a female cat
burglar doing one last job that naturally goes wrong, the
story seemed conceived and constructed as a shameless pitch
for another movie deal. it was also in this general time
period that the author did some actual Hollywood work
himself, creating and working on a television series for the
now defunct start-up network UPN called LEVEL 9, about a
cyber crime task force
working his fulltime gig as a journalist while writing the
first 3 Bosch novels must have been a good training in
discipline. because as time consuming as working on the
television series must have been, Connelly didn't fall off
his pace, publishing A DARKNESS MORE THAN NIGHT in 2001.
Bosch was back, but this time as a suspect in a case
featuring Terry McCaleb, the protagonist from Blood Work. but
as compelling a concept as this would seem to long time
Connelly fans, it's doubtful that few actually believed the
character had crossed the line into vigilantism. the author
had to be aware of this, as this angle was used more as a
set-up to team the two investigators
Connelly had reached another milestone. he had opened the
door to a universe of cross-over characters from his stand
alone thrillers to his mystery series. a universe he would
continue to exploit in his effort to keep his work fresh and
original to both himself and his rapidly expanding
audience
TO BE CONTINUED...
John Lau
************** It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms, and advice on
AOL Money
& Finance.
(http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolprf00030000000001)
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 03 Mar 2008 EST