Michael Connelly is one of the most prolific authors of our time. He's written 39 novels, sold over 85 million copies of his books worldwide, had his works translated into 45 different languages, and won numerous awards. One of his most recent awards was the Grand Master title for Mystery Writers of America in 2023. Many Connelly fans even know him from his adapted works on Netflix and Prime Video— "Bosch," "Bosch: Legacy," and "The Lincoln Lawyer" being adaptations of his Mystery/Thriller series "Harry Bosch" and "The Lincoln Lawyer." With such success, Connelly continues to write, with his next novel "The Waiting" set to release on October 15, 2024.
However, Connelly wasn't always a prolific novelist. He started life in the City of Brotherly Love, born July 21, 1956, and at the age of 12 moved to Florida. He studied journalism and creative writing at the University of Florida, graduating in 1980. During the 80s he'd cover the crime beat of Fort Lauderdale, honing his skills for writing about crime and violence. He'd eventually catch his big break in journalism with a piece on the 1985 Delta Airlines Flight 191 crash, a piece that would get him short-listed for a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing and land him a job with the Los Angeles Times. It wouldn't be until January 21, 1992, that Connelly would make his novelist debut with "The Black Echo," the first book in his "Harry Bosch" series and one that would catapult him into our cultural memory.
So this July 21, let's celebrate this lion of Mystery/Thriller and Crime novels! Grab one of Connelly's many works from our catalog and follow his cast of misfits, or discover new authors and their spine tingling tales.
- Criminally Good Works by Connelly
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"The Black Echo" by Michael Connelly
The first novel in the "Harry Bosch" series.
"For maverick LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch, the body in the drainpipe at Mulholland Dam is more than another anonymous statistic. This one is personal...because the murdered man was a fellow Vietnam "tunnel rat" who had fought side by side with him in a hellish underground war. Now Bosch is about to relive the horror of Nam. From a dangerous maze of blind alleys to a daring criminal heist beneath the city, his survival instincts will once again be tested to their limit. Pitted against enemies inside his own department and forced to make the agonizing choice between justice and vengeance, Bosch goes on the hunt for a killer whose true face will shock him."— from GoodReads.
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"The Lincoln Lawyer" by Michael Connelly
The first novel in the "Lincoln Lawyer" series.
"Mickey Haller has spent all his professional life afraid that he wouldn’t recognize innocence if it stood right in front of him. But what he should have been on the watch for was evil.
Haller is the Lincoln Lawyer, a criminal defense attorney who operates out of the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car. He travels between the far-flung courthouses of Los Angeles to defend clients of every kind. Bikers, con artists, drunk drivers, drug dealers — they’re all on Mickey Haller’s client list. For him, the law is rarely about guilt or innocence — it’s about negotiation and manipulation. Sometimes it’s even about justice.
A Beverly Hills playboy arrested for attacking a woman he picked up in a bar chooses Haller to defend him, and Mickey has his first high-paying client in years. It is a defense attorney’s dream, what they call a franchise case. And, as the evidence stacks up, Haller comes to believe this may be the easiest case of his career.
Then someone close to him is murdered and Haller discovers that his search for innocence has brought him face-to-face with evil as pure as a flame. To escape without being burned, he must deploy every tactic, feint, and instinct in his arsenal — this time to save his own life."— from GoodReads.
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"The Late Show" by Michael Connelly
The first novel in the "Renée Ballard" series.
"… a driven young detective trying to prove herself in the LAPD Renée Ballard works the night shift in Hollywood, beginning many investigations but finishing none as each morning she turns her cases over to day shift detectives. A once up-and-coming detective, she's been given this beat as punishment after filing a sexual harassment complaint against a supervisor. But one night she catches two cases she doesn't want to part the brutal beating of a prostitute left for dead in a parking lot and the killing of a young woman in a nightclub shooting. Ballard is determined not to give up at dawn. Against orders and her own partner's wishes, she works both cases by day while maintaining her shift by night. As the cases entwine they pull her closer to her own demons and the reason she won't give up her job no matter what the department throws at her."— from GoodReads.
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"The Poet" by Michael Connelly
The first novel in the "Jack McEvoy" series.
"Denver crime-beat reporter Jack McEvoy specializes in violent death. So when his homicide detective brother kills himself, McEvoy copes in the only way he knows how--he decides to write the story. But his research leads him to suspect a serial killer is at work--a devious murderer who's killing cops and leaving a trail of poetic clues. It's the news story of a lifetime, if he can get the story without losing his life."— from GoodReads.
- Adult Mystery/Thriller Recommendations That Will Knock You Dead
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"The Blue Bar" by Damyanti Biswas
First novel in the "Blue Mumbai" series.
"On the dark streets of Mumbai, the paths of a missing dancer, a serial killer, and an inspector with a haunted past converge in an evocative thriller about lost love and murderous obsession. After years of dancing in Mumbai’s bars, Tara Mondal was desperate for a new start. So when a client offered her a life-changing payout to indulge a harmless, if odd, fantasy, she accepted. The setup was simple: wear a blue-sequined saree, enter a crowded railway station, and escape from view in less than three minutes. It was the last time anyone saw Tara. Thirteen years later, Tara’s lover, Inspector Arnav Singh Rajput, is still grappling with her disappearance as he faces a horrifying new crisis: on the city’s outskirts, women’s dismembered bodies are being unearthed from shallow graves. Very little links the murders, except a scattering of blue sequins and a decade’s worth of missing persons reports that correspond with major festivals. Past and present blur as Arnav realizes he’s on the trail of a serial killer and that someone wants his investigation buried at any cost. Could the key to finding Tara and solving these murders be hidden in one of his cold cases? Or will the next body they recover be hers?"— from Amazon.com.
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"Dead Dead Girls" by Nekesa Afia
First novel in the "Harlem Renaissance Mystery" series.
"The start of an exciting new historical mystery series set during the Harlem Renaissance from debut author Nekesa Afia. Harlem, 1926. Young black women like Louise Lloyd are ending up dead. Following a harrowing kidnapping ordeal when she was in her teens, Louise is doing everything she can to maintain a normal life. She's succeeding, too. She spends her days working at Maggie's Café and her nights at the Zodiac, Harlem's hottest speakeasy. Louise's friends might say she's running from her past and the notoriety that still stalks her, but don't tell her that. When a girl turns up dead in front of the café, Louise is forced to confront something she's been trying to ignore--two other local black girls have been murdered over the past few weeks. After an altercation with a police officer gets her arrested, Louise is given an ultimatum: She can either help solve the case or wind up in a jail cell. Louise has no choice but to investigate and soon finds herself toe-to-toe with a murderous mastermind hell-bent on taking more lives, maybe even her own"— Provided by Publisher.
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"Murder at Cape Three Points" by Kwei Quartey
Third novel in the "Darko Dawson" series.
"Accra’s hotshot Detective Inspector Darko Dawson returns to solve a complex mystery that will take him out of the city to the beautiful coasts of Ghana, where a grim double-murder seems to have larger political implications.
A canoe washes up at a Ghanaian off-shore oil rig site. Inside it are the bodies of a prominent, wealthy couple, Charles and Fiona Smith-Aidoo, who have been ritualistically murdered. Pillars in their community, they are mourned by everyone, but especially by their niece Sapphire. She is not happy that months have passed since the murder and the local police have made no headway in figuring out who committed the gruesome crime.
Detective Inspector Darko Dawson of the Accra police force is sent out to Cape Three Points to investigate. The more he learns about the case, the more convoluted it becomes. Three Points has long been occupied by traditional fishing populations, but real estate entrepreneurs and wealthy oil companies have been trying to bribe the indigenous inhabitants to move out. Dawson unearths a host of motives for murder, ranging from personal vendettas to corporate conspiracies."— from GoodReads.Image
"Murder on the Red River" by Marcie R. Rendon
First novel in the "Cash Blackbear Mysteries" series.
"Set in 1970s along Red River Valley, Marcie R. Rendon's gripping new mystery follows the life of a young Ojibwe woman as she struggles to come to terms with the callous murder of a Native American stranger, bringing to life the gritty, dark reality of a flawed foster care system and the oppression of indigenous people.
Renee "Cash" Blackbear, a 19-year-old, tough-as-nails, resilient Ojibwe woman, has lived all her life in Fargo, sister city to Minnesota's Moorhead, just downriver from the Cities. Her life revolves around driving truck for local farmers, drinking beer, playing pool, smoking cigarettes, and solving criminal investigations through the power of her visions. She has one friend, Sheriff Wheaton, who's also her guardian and helped her out of the broken foster care system. Together they must work to solve a murder across cultures in a rural Midwest community layered in racism, genocide, and oppression."— from GoodReads.
- Thrilling Children's and YA Recommendations
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"Ace of Spade" by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
YA Mystery/Thriller
"All you need to know is . . . I’m here to divide and conquer. Like all great tyrants do. —Aces
When two Niveus Private Academy students, Devon Richards and Chiamaka Adebayo, are selected to be part of the elite school’s senior class prefects, it looks like their year is off to an amazing start. After all, not only does it look great on college applications, but it officially puts each of them in the running for valedictorian, too.
Shortly after the announcement is made, though, someone who goes by Aces begins using anonymous text messages to reveal secrets about the two of them that turn their lives upside down and threaten every aspect of their carefully planned futures.
As Aces shows no sign of stopping, what seemed like a sick prank quickly turns into a dangerous game, with all the cards stacked against them. Can Devon and Chiamaka stop Aces before things become incredibly deadly?"— from GoodReads.
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"How We Fall Apart" by Katie Zhao
YA Mystery/Thriller
"Jamie Ruan is the queen bee of Sinclair Prep. Until one day, she's dead. The Proctor, an anonymous poster on the school media app, points the finger at Jamie's friends. Akil Patel is the school's track star-- and he's running from his secrets. Krystal Choi has a killer sense of fashion, but does that make her a killer? Alexander Lin is always focused on grades, but is hiding a dark secret . Nancy Luo isn't threatening... unless you get between her and the top spot."— adapted from jacket.
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"Hollow Fires" by Samira Ahmed
"Safiya Mirza dreams of becoming a journalist. And one thing she’s learned as editor of her school newspaper is that a journalist’s job is to find the facts and not let personal biases affect the story. But all that changes the day she finds the body of a murdered boy.
Jawad Ali was fourteen years old when he built a cosplay jetpack that a teacher mistook for a bomb. A jetpack that got him arrested, labeled a terrorist—and eventually killed. But he’s more than a dead body, and more than “Bomb Boy.” He was a person with a life worth remembering. Driven by Jawad’s haunting voice guiding her throughout her investigation, Safiya seeks to tell the whole truth about the murdered boy and those who killed him because of their hate-based beliefs."— from GoodReads.
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"Murder is Bad Manners: A Wells & Wong Mystery" by Robin Stevens
Middle Grade Mystery/Thriller, first novel of the "Murder Most Unladylike/A Wells & Wong Mystery" series.
"When Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong set up their very own deadly secret detective agency at Deepdean School for Girls, they struggle to find any truly exciting mysteries to investigate. (Unless you count the case of Lavinia's missing tie. Which they don't, really.)
But then Hazel discovers the Science Mistress, Miss Bell, lying dead in the Gym. She thinks it must all have been a terrible accident -- but when she and Daisy return five minutes later, the body has disappeared. Now the girls know a murder must have taken place... and there's more than one person at Deepdean with a motive.
Now Hazel and Daisy not only have a murder to solve: they have to prove a murder happened in the first place. Determined to get to the bottom of the crime before the killer strikes again (and before the police can get there first, naturally), Hazel and Daisy must hunt for evidence, spy on their suspects and use all the cunning, scheming and intuition they can muster. But will they succeed? And can their friendship stand the test?"— from GoodReads.
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"Pepper's Rules for Secret Sleuthing" by Briana McDonald
Middle Grade Mystery/Thriller
"Amateur detective Pepper Blouse has always held true to this rule, even if it meant pushing people away. But when the results of Pepper’s latest case cost her any hope of the girl she likes returning her feelings, she decides that maybe she should lay low for a while.
That is, until her Great Aunt Florence passes away under mysterious circumstances. And even though her dad insists there’s nothing to investigate, Pepper can’t just ignore rule Trust your gut .
But there’s nothing in the rulebook that could’ve prepared her for the family secrets her investigation uncovers.
Maybe it’s time to stop playing by the rules."— adapted from jacket.
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"Eddie Red Undercover: Mystery on Museum Mile" by Marcia Wells
Middle Grade Mystery/Thriller, first novel of the "Eddie Red Undercover" series.
"Sixth grader Edmund Xavier Lonnrot, codename "Eddie Red," has a photographic memory and talent for drawing anything he sees. When the NYPD is stumped by a mastermind art thief, Eddie becomes their secret weapon to solve the case"— Provided by publisher.