Bosch: Author Connelly On Giving Harry a New Lease on Life & More

Posted in: Amazon Studios, TV | Tagged: Bosch, bosch: legacy, Michael Connelly, Renée Ballard, The Lincoln Lawyer

Author Michael Connelly discussed Harry Bosch & his health, wanting more Bosch stories in the future, and more during a book club livestream.

Harry Bosch is getting older but thriving – his TV series Bosch: Legacy is a hit that’s not going away anytime soon. The book version of Bosch, however, has been somewhat different – he’s older than the TV version by about twenty years, and he has a major pressing problem. During a live book club stream this week to talk about his latest Lincoln Lawyer novel “Resurrection Walk,” author Michael Connelly finally commented on Harry Bosch’s health. In the last three years’ worth of the annual book releases, Bosch’s cancer (the result of his exposure to stolen radioactive isotopes on a case during the War on Terror in the 2000s in “The Overlook”) had come back, and by the previous Bosch and Ballard novel “Desert Star,” had reached an advanced stage. “Resurrection Walk” is the latest novel to feature Bosch, directly following “Desert Star”, and Connelly finally gave an answer about Harry Bosch’s future.

“I gotta save Harry,” declared Connelly during the livestream. In “Resurrection Walk,” Bosch is undergoing experimental cancer treatment that might be extending his lifespan after all. Connelly said he now wants Bosch (the book version) to stick around as long as possible to tell more stories with. This is a change from 2022 during the release of “Desert Star” when Connelly talked about the idea of killing off Bosch. Connelly had to research what experimental cancer treatments were out there that Bosch could take, then weaved a story where Harry needed to get better insurance to cover it; hence his agreeing to work for Haller.

Bosch also played a larger part in the story of “Resurrection Walk” than Connelly intended, taking up a large chunk of the novel almost as much as Micky Haller did. Bosch works with his half-brother Haller on a case and even becomes his driver. He refuses to drive unless Haller sits up front next to him. “I’m not your chauffeur!” snarls Bosch.

Connelly also talked about having to do more research to write Lincoln Lawyer stories because of all the complexities of the legal system besides drawing on his experiences as a reporter covering the crime beat in LA.  “I’ve had lawyers say, ‘Hey, that would never happen!’ but I saw it happen in court, I read the verdict, I read the transcripts, I interviewed the people.” But more often than not, he needed something surprising and seemingly improbable to happen, “so I have to find a way to make it happen.” Fortunately, he has at least four lawyers as writers for the Lincoln Lawyer TV series who can think through the intricacies of the plot and legal situation and tell him, “Okay, here’s how it can happen.”

Connelly also said he is slowly stepping back from the TV shows and being less hands-on because he can trust the writers and staff after working with them for the last few years. There are currently three active writing teams for the TV series: one for Bosch: Legacy, one for The Lincoln Lawyer, and one for the greenlit but still-untitled Renée Ballard series. On the writing side, Connelly hasn’t started his next book yet – with the author still deciding on what story or which character.

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