Crime Beat: A Decade of Covering Cops and Killers Read online

  THE CRIME WRITERS I most admire are the ones who do something different with the form. Hammett’s accounting of people’s lies, evasions and self-serving testimonies, with no stylistic value judgment coming between the character and the reader. Chandler’s symphonies of simile. Marlowe’s ability to crack wise in ways that don’t occur to real people until the next day. Donald Westlake crafting Richard Stark’s bare, clipped prose, which matches Parker’s bare, clipped view of the world. George Higgins’ ability to narrate through dialogue, where his characters’ storytelling ability tells you more about them than any description could. James Ellroy’s riffing and agonizing alliterative arsenal.

  On the surface, Connelly breaks no new ground. He writes well and cleanly, but look carefully and you’ll see how it goes beyond clean. His prose style is, in fact, an outgrowth of his reporting, hard-boiled without being cynical.

  In the 1930s many people compared Hammett to Hemingway, often suggesting Hammett was there first with hard-boiled prose. This was unfair to Hemingway, because In Our Time is crafted with a bare purity that has rarely been matched. Hemingway attributed that purity to learning “cable-ese,” the pared-down prose necessary to save on the cost of wiring his reporting back to the paper at home. But neither writer has the raw, hard-boiled quality of Paul Cain’s Fast One or Raoul Whitfield’s Green Ice. Look elsewhere in Hemingway or at some of Hammett and you’ll find prose crafted in an almost romantic manner, because they refuse to submit completely to cynicism; they’ve seen too much of reality for that.

  Connelly decided to become a crime writer after seeing Robert Altman’s cynical version of The Long Goodbye and turning to Chandler’s novels, which he devoured one by one. At the University of Florida, he studied creative writing with the novelist Harry Crews. Although he claims Crews’ lifestyle and his success as a writer were more of an influence than his style, I see elements of Crews’ darkness, somewhere between Southern gothic and theater of the absurd, in Connelly’s fiction. I also see, in Harry Bosch, a very Crewsian figure, out of place in his world, and stretched to breaking point trying to make himself fit.

  Bosch is the catalyst that allows Connelly to perform the trick of turning reality into fiction. The art of writing good hard-boiled prose requires a certain detachment, the ability to not let the runny emotional yolk of a story break free.

  But it doesn’t have to be boiled within the shell. The closest comparison I can make in crime fiction is with Ross MacDonald, whose Lew Archer is an observer of social change, almost a reporter, and whose prose brings the reader a clear perspective on what Archer sees, freed of cynicism and ornamentation.

  This is exactly the sense in which I think of Michael Connelly as a hard-boiled writer, and one of the most successful. He has been able to achieve that detachment without losing the emotional center, without sacrificing empathy. He is able to sustain a paradoxical sense of distance and involvement in his fiction—like a reporter, sharing the experience of cops without becoming one himself, balancing the grief of victims, the nature of victimizers, the frustrations of cops. He learned to do it in the pieces collected here.

  PERHAPS YOU NOTICED I began this essay by saying Michael Connelly is a reporter. Not was a reporter. Is.

  The would-be novelist stuck in a career as a newsman is an old cliché. I don’t see Michael ever being stuck. I don’t know if he went to his first crime scene and gathered his notes with the idea of finding material for his books. You will certainly see in these stories the raw materials—the crimes, the criminals, the cops and the city—that make up his fiction. But what these pieces do show is that Connelly was a hell of a good reporter. And that being a hell of a good reporter was a great start for becoming a hell of a good novelist.

  MICHAEL CARLSON was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and lives in London with his wife and son. He has written about Michael Connelly for the Spectator, Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, Perth (Australia) Sunday Times, Shots and Crime Time, where he also edits the film section. His studies of the directors Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood and Oliver Stone were published in the Pocket Essentials series.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The stories contained in this collection all carried the byline of Michael Connelly but without exception they were all labored over by numerous editors, copyeditors and fellow reporters. It is impossible to write a newspaper or magazine story without the input of many. I wish to thank all of those who helped make these stories fit to print.

  I also wish to thank Michael Pietsch, Asya Muchnick and Pamela Marshall for their more recent work in making the stories suitable for reprinting here. And last but not least, special thanks to Steven Vascik of SCV Publications for first gathering and publishing this collection.

  PERMISSIONS

  We are grateful to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and the Los Angeles Times for permission to reprint the following previously published stories.

  SOUTH FLORIDA SUN-SENTINEL

  WILDER CHARGED WITH SLAYING HOUSEWIFE

  Copyright © 1984. Reprinted with permission of South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

  WILDER LED DOUBLE LIFE IN SOUTH FLORIDA

  Copyright © 1984. Reprinted with permission of South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

  WILDER VICTIMS STILL MISSING 1 YEAR LATER

  Copyright © 1985. Reprinted with permission of South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

  IDENTITY OF MURDER VICTIM STILL SHROUDED IN MYSTERY

  Copyright © 1986. Reprinted with permission of South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

  THE MOB SQUAD

  Copyright © 1987. Reprinted with permission of South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

  BILLY THE BURGLAR

  Copyright © 1987. Reprinted with permission of South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

  THE MAIL-ORDER MURDERS

  Copyright © 1987. Reprinted with permission of South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

  LAUDERDALE HOMICIDE

  Copyright © 1987. Reprinted with permission of South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

  LOS ANGELES TIMES

  PORTRAIT OF A MURDER SUSPECT

  Copyright © 1987, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  TARZANA MAN HELD IN MURDER OF HIS MISSING FATHER

  Copyright © 1987, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  LAPD FOREIGN PROSECUTION UNIT

  Copyright © 1987, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  SAKAI FOUGHT KILLERS

  Copyright © 1988, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  MURDER CASE

  Copyright © 1988, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  ROOKIE OFFICER DIES IN STRUGGLE FOR GUN

  Copyright © 1988, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  DEATH FOR DEATH

  Copyright © 1988, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  1,000 ATTEND RITES FOR SLAIN ROOKIE OFFICER

  Copyright © 1988, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  4 MEN ARRESTED IN LAKE VIEW TERRACE QUADRUPLE KILLING

  Copyright © 1988, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  DRUG RING KINGPIN CALLS THE SHOTS FROM PRISON, POLICE SAY

  Copyright © 1988, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  AMBUSH SHOOTING

  Copyright © 1989, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  WHO SHOT VIC WEISS?

  Copyright © 1989, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  ‘COTTON CLUB’ CASE LED TO ARREST IN ’84 SLAYING OF PROSTITUTE

  Copyright © 1989, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  SUSPECT REMAINS AT LARGE ALMOST 2 YEARS AFTER HIS FATHER’S SLAYING

  Copyright © 1989, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  MURDER OF KANAN HEIR REMAINS A MYSTERY

  Copyright © 1990, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  POLICE SURVEILLANCE UNIT KILLS 3 ROBBERY SUSPECTS

  Copyright © 1990, Los Angeles Times. Repri
nted with permission.

  MICHAEL BRYANT’S DOUBLE LIFE

  Copyright © 1990, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  NEPHEW IDENTIFIED AS SOLE SUSPECT IN KANAN KILLING

  Copyright © 1990, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  DAUGHTER SAYS FATHER, WIFE HE’S ACCUSED OF KILLING HAD ARGUED

  Copyright © 1991, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  TRIAL ORDERED FOR MAN ACCUSED OF KILLING WIFE, BURYING HER IN YARD

  Copyright © 1991, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  MAN CHARGED IN 1982 DEATH ALLEGES POLICE VENDETTA

  Copyright © 1991, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  CHARGES WILL NOT BE FILED IN KANAN CASE

  Copyright © 1991, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  SELF-PROMOTING ‘CONTRACT KILLER’ ENTERS PLEA TO KILLING WIFE IN ’85

  Copyright © 1991, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  MURDER SUSPECT SEEKS TO CLEAR NAME WITH LAWSUITS

  Copyright © 1991, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  WIFE STILL A SUSPECT IN HUSBAND’S DEATH AFTER LOSING SUIT

  Copyright © 1991, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  KILLING OF SPOUSE PUTS AN END TO MAN’S DOUBLE LIFE

  Copyright © 1991, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  ATTORNEY CALLS SPECIAL LAPD SQUAD ‘ASSASSINS’ AS CIVIL RIGHTS TRIAL OPENS

  Copyright © 1992, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  FBI PROBES SLAYING OF ROBBERS BY LAPD

  Copyright © 1992, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  CHRISTOPHER REPORT: IT CUTS BOTH WAYS

  Copyright © 1992, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  L.A. DETECTIVE TELLS DETAILS OF FATAL SHOOTING

  Copyright © 1992, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  GATES WANTS TO BE ‘JUDGE, JURY, EXECUTIONER,’ LAWYER SAYS

  Copyright © 1992, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  COUNCIL SUED OVER FATAL POLICE SHOOTING

  Copyright © 1992, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  MASSIVE DRUG, MURDER CASE INCHES ITS WAY TOWARD TRIAL

  Copyright © 1992, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  VALLEY POLICE PUZZLE OVER MAN’S DEATH DURING RIOTS

  Copyright © 1992, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  ATTORNEYS AWARDED FEE OF $378,000 IN BRUTALITY SUIT

  Copyright © 1992, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  MICHAEL CONNELLY is a former journalist and the author of the bestselling series of Harry Bosch novels, including The Closers and The Narrows, along with the bestselling novels The Lincoln Lawyer, Chasing the Dime, Void Moon, Blood Work, and The Poet. Connelly has won numerous awards for his journalism and novels, including an Edgar Award. He is the former president of Mystery Writers of America.