If you’re planning to pick up a Michael Connelly novel or are just checking to see if you’ve read them all (it just wouldn’t do to miss one, would it?), this Buzzle article will give you a list of all his books in chronological order of publication. (We wouldn’t want you to miss one, either.)
Did You Know?
Michael Connelly occasionally makes a guest appearance in the hit TV show Castle, as himself.
Think about crime-fiction, and Michael Connelly comes to mind. Think about suspense, and Michael Connelly comes to mind. Think about intense page-turners, and yes, Michael Connelly comes to mind! What is it about his books that don’t let you put them down until you’re done devouring them completely? I wish I could actually find the answer to that. But I can’t. Apart from concluding that they’re just so, you know, thrilling.
Having been best-sellers throughout, Michael Connelly’s books have continually amazed readers and critics alike. His research and the presentation of his plots is impressive, and readers often find themselves getting actively involved in the story. From his debut novel, to his latest ones, Connelly has successfully worked his magic in each book.
Here’s the list we promised you, a list of all his books in chronological order.
The Black Echo (1992)
Winning countless fans and the Edgar Award for ‘Best First Mystery Novel’, The Black Echo was Michael Connelly’s debut novel. It also marked the beginning of the famous Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch series, which would go on to become a super-hit worldwide. Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch, a veteran from the Vietnam War, is a diligent detective in the homicide division of the Los Angeles Police Department. The murder of a fellow veteran and friend sends him on a chase to find the ones responsible. What follows is packed with crime, suspense, and danger, as Bosch battles enemies who are out to stop him- any way they can.
Praise for The Black Echo:
“One of those books you read with your knuckles – just hanging on until it’s over…good and thrilling.”
― New York Times
The Black Ice (1993)
Harry Bosch returns in this second, mind-boggling book by Connelly. The death of a police officer is declared as suicide when his body is discovered in a hotel room with a note. However, Bosch knows there is something more to the incident than what is being displayed. Startling discoveries follow when Bosch puts together a long list of murders that seem to have nothing to do with each other on paper, but are alarmingly connected to each other. Bosch has undertaken a lethal mission to get to the bottom of it all, a mission where he is almost certain to get included in that gory list of murders.
Praise for The Black Ice:
“Hard-bitten…complex and convincing.”
― San Diego Union-Tribute
The Concrete Blonde (1994)
A serial killer only known as ‘The Dollmaker’ is causing grisly havoc in LA―he kills women mercilessly and leaves his signature mark on his victims once he’s done. Harry Bosch decides to end this once and for all, and shoots the Dollmaker dead, or so he thinks. In a terrifying new sequence of events, the dead man’s wife accuses him of shooting the wrong man, an accusation that seems correct when The Dollmaker picks his new victim. Bosch has to find the killer, and soon, before he can choose his next victim.
Praise for The Concrete Blonde:
“Michael Connelly is a splendid storyteller…a gritty, gripping thriller.”
― San Diego Tribune
The Last Coyote (1995)
Connelly returns with his hero, Harry Bosch, in a book that explores Bosch’s past in amazing detail. Bosch is troubled―he has anger issues―his relationship is over, and he has turned to alcohol for support. At the insistence of his office, he agrees to meet a psychiatrist, only to find that all his problems may in some way, be connected to his mother’s murder several years ago. Bosch sets out to get to the bottom of his mother’s murder, a case that nobody had bothered to investigate before. The investigation brings to light the misunderstandings and grudges that still hold, and a killer who could have never been suspected of the crime.
Praise for The Last Coyote:
“A clever plot, full of twists, to make a first-rate legal thriller.”
― Sunday Telegraph
The Poet (1996)
The Poet is the start of a brilliant new series by Michael Connelly, featuring Jack McEvoy. A crime reporter through and through, Jack writes about deaths―murders, suicides, and accidents―it has ceased to affect him, until he loses his brother who is a homicide detective, in an apparent suicide because of being unable to solve a terrible murder mystery. As his writing progresses, shocking secrets come to light, and Jack realizes he has stumbled upon a gruesome story―one that needs to be exposed, and one, which could very well get him killed.
Praise for The Poet:
“Pulse Pounding . . . Connelly is one of those masters of structure who can keep driving the story forward, paragraph by paragraph, in runaway-locomotive style.”
― USA Today
Trunk Music (1997)
Harry Bosch, homicide detective, LA Police Department is interested in a case his bosses don’t think much of―a Hollywood producer is found shot dead in his car. Further investigations give Bosch clues that the Mafia is involved, but he doesn’t believe the case is solved, yet. Some more inspection causes him to believe he has almost solved it, when what happens next is a deadly trail of threats, danger, and risks―Bosch has to solve a case with everything on the line.
Praise for Trunk Music:
“Compelling…Connelly displays a wonderful atmospheric feel for the posh and the poor…The last pages bring things to a shocking end that should satisfy Connelly’s growing audience.”
― Washington Post
Blood Work (1998)
A hardworking FBI officer, Terry McCaleb, has to retire early because of heart problems. As he settles down in his new, low-key life, he is asked to investigate a murder that intrigues him to no end. What starts off as a regular investigation turns into a discomforting story that leads Terry onto the trail of a murderer who is unlike any other criminal he has dealt with before.
Praise for Blood Work:
“A richly detailed and totally absorbing thriller. . . .Be prepared to read this one straight through. It’s that good.”
― Chicago Tribune
Blood Work was adapted into a movie by the same name which released in 2002.
Angels Flight (1999)
A 12-year-old black girl is brutally raped and murdered, and the Los Angeles Police Department is accused of inhuman interrogation methods that seriously injure their rape suspect. A renowned black lawyer is chosen to fight this case―the case against the police. Everything is going smoothly, until another murder takes place―this time, the esteemed lawyer is killed. Harry Bosch is appointed to investigate the murder, but it isn’t easy. Obstacles after obstacles follow and Bosch has to do all he can to solve the case before time runs out.
Praise for Angels Flight:
“Bosch is a wonderful old-fashioned hero who isn’t afraid to walk through the flames – and suffer the pain for the rest of us.”
― New York Times Book Review
Void Moon (2000)
Cassie Black has a seemingly normal life―she works as a car saleswoman at her job, lives alone and tries her best to be happy. Not everyone knows she has a criminal past, one that she has abandoned following a horrible night of pain and loss. Cassie lives her new life only because she holds a secret that is dear to her, one that she would do anything for. And so when that secret is in jeopardy, she goes back to her criminal life, one where she robs gamblers and gets away with it. This time, however, it’s not that simple. Cassie has invited a lot of trouble, and has to do all she can to get out of the criminal life, alive.
Praise for Void Moon:
“In Void Moon, the job’s high-tech gadgets and split second timing ratchet up the tension. Michael Connelly’s Void Moon is outstanding.”
― Wall Street Journal
A Darkness More than Night (2001)
Terry McCaleb, retired FBI officer, is more than willing to help the FBI when they ask for his help in solving a murder mystery. Harry Bosch is in the midst of solving a case that has caused an uproar in LA―the murder of an actress by a Hollywood director. As the two continue with their separate investigations, they find that the two murders just might have a dangerous connection that has been hidden so far.
Praise for A Darkness More than Night:
“…flawless, cleverly conceived, superbly plotted and morally complex.”
― Publishers Weekly
City of Bones (2002)
A man calls Harry Bosch with a complaint―his dog has found a bone in his garden, and the man believes it is a human bone. Bosch sets about his investigation, and it leads him to the revelation of a murder of a 12-year-old boy that was committed a couple of decades ago. To solve the mystery of the crime, Bosch digs up all that he can―old records from orphanages, hospitals, and police stations. His efforts don’t give him the evidence or the results he’s looking for, and Bosch often finds himself in the middle of nowhere. He also finds himself getting involved with a female rookie cop, and things begin to go haywire in not just the investigation, but also his life.
Praise for City of Bones:
“Book Of The Week. …his melancholy hero deftly weaves a thin thread of hope through a spartan saga of good and evil, light and darkness.”
― People Magazine
Chasing the Dime (2002)
When Henry Pierce gets a new phone number, little does he know that he is getting himself mixed up in something that may not have a way out. Strangers keep calling him all the time, asking for Lily, who owned that number before him. Intrigued by the calls, Pierce tries to find out more about the woman who is evidently in great danger. What he finds is a world of a different kind―a world of prostitution, call girls, and smothered secrets. He also finds himself trying to save the mysterious Lily, something that could cost him everything―including himself.
Praise for Chasing the Dime:
“Connelly diabolically teases readers with bits of exposition while scaring the hell out of them in the most accomplished slice of Hitchcock since the Master’s heyday. The result is a tour de force of nerve-shredding suspense.”
― Kirkus Review
Lost Light (2003)
Harry Bosch is fed up with the hypocrisy and insincerity in LAPD, and quits after almost three decades of service. However, he does not leave without taking a case with him, the murder of a film production assistant a few years ago. Bosch is determined to find the killer but it won’t be that easy―dire conflicts between him, LAPD, and the FBI are going to make themselves felt.
Praise for Lost Light:
“Lost Light marks Connelly’s most stunning achievement yet, further proof that he is the most talented of crime writers.”
― The New Yorker
The Narrows (2004)
The Poet, has returned. The infamous serial killer who laced his crimes with lines of poetry. FBI agent Rachel Walling has been waiting for this day with dread, she knew he would return when she worked on his case years ago. A woman calls Harry Bosch to report her husband’s death, and what he finds leads him onto a hair-raising trail, a hunt for the Poet. Scarily interlinked, Bosch and Rachel find themselves looking for the most ruthless murderer they have ever seen.
Praise for The Narrows:
“Connelly is a master and this novel is yet another of his masterpieces.”
― Publishers Weekly
The Closers (2005)
Harry Bosch is back working for the Los Angeles Police Department after three long years, and his new job is to solve the cases that have been neglected, investigations which have been stalled, and crimes that are still unpunished. With his rivals rooting for his failure, Bosch takes up the case of a young girl who was murdered several years ago, and is now reopened because of a DNA match. Proving the criminal’s identity is easy, but proving his association with the crime is not. The possibility of a racial crime is not overlooked, but there is still something missing, something that seems to have been covered up, and Bosch has to dig deep into the ghosts of the past to find out the truth.
Praise for The Closers:
“The return of Harry Bosch is good for his beloved City of the Angels and great for readers.”
― Chicago Sun Times
The Lincoln Lawyer (2005)
Mickey Haller is a defense attorney working from the back seat of his Lincoln Town car, whose clients are mainly drug dealers, small-time gangsters, drunk drivers and the like. For the first time in his life, he gets to defend a wealthy LA business man who has been accused of assault and attempt to murder of a woman he picked up in a bar. His client’s lies and pleas make Haller believe the woman has wrongly accused him, until some strange happenings make him realize that what he is dealing with isn’t a simple case, but an evil man who won’t think twice before getting Haller disposed off.
Praise for The Lincoln Lawyer:
“One of the best novels Connelly has written, if not the best.”
― USA Today
This book was adapted into a movie of the same name, in 2011.
Echo Park (2006)
An unsolved case always haunted Harry Bosch―the disappearance and presumed murder of Marie Gesto in 1993. Though her clothes and car made their way back, the woman was never found, dead or alive. Thirteen years later, the District Attorney’s office calls Bosch at LAPD. They have a man ready to confess to a number of murders, including Marie Gesto’s, in order to avoid the death penalty. Bosch and his partner now have to make sure this confession is genuine and believable, and not a fictional tale made up in order to escape punishment by death. What follows is a life-changing experience for Bosch, when he realizes that he missed a clue back in 1993 that could have avoided the rest of the murders that happened after Marie Gesto.
Praise for Echo Park:
“What puts Connelly in the top rank of modern procedural writers―and, perhaps, into the ranks of the better modern LA writers of any genre―is his willingness to accept that there aren’t always easy answers in Bosch’s life, or sometimes any answers at all. (Indeed, the future of more than one major character in the series is left in question at Echo Park’s end.) That sense of uncertainty and dread, combined with Bosch’s going from middle age to the precipice of old age, informs every page of this novel.”
― The Washington Post
The Overlook (2007)
Dr. Stanley Kent is found mysteriously murdered, and his wife is gagged, but what worries Harry Bosch more than anything is that a large quantity of a radioactive substance is stolen from the hospital before the murder, where Kent worked. If used for the wrong purposes, this substance could kill countless innocents, and destroy a major city, and Bosch fears this has a terrifying link to a terrorist group. Before long, the FBI gets involved, as according to them, this job is too big for the LAPD. Bosch is now on a mission―to find the group behind the murder, stop anything that could harm national security, and prove the FBI wrong.
Praise for The Overlook:
“Treat The Overlook like a tasty hors d’oeuvre: down it in one quick gulp, and look forward to the next Bosch entrée.”
― Booklist.
The Brass Verdict (2008)
Mickey Haller is back. After recovering from a painkiller addiction and the wounds from his last case, he is finally ready to start working again. The murder of a prominent lawyer ultimately gives Haller a high-profile case, the defense of a big-shot executive who has been accused of murdering his wife and her German lover. Taking over the murdered lawyer’s job is not easy, as somebody wants this case to be left alone, someone who is now plotting to murder Haller. Meanwhile, Bosch is on the hunt for the lawyer’s killer and does not hesitate in using Haller to get there. The plot twists and thickens, and the two have no choice but to get together and solve the case, once and for all.
Praise for The Brass Verdict:
“Connelly once again hits it out of the park in the tightly written, fast-paced and sharply imagined The Brass Verdict….Connelly builds to some breathtaking twists before all comes to a close. And a more perfect end to the maze he has drawn is difficult to imagine.”
― Denver Post
The Scarecrow (2009)
Jack McEvoy has just lost his job as a crime reporter at the Los Angeles Times and has to leave the newspaper in a couple of weeks. With a few days to go, he has a final assignment, one that has him training a reporter fresh out of journalism school. But Jack wants to make his bosses sorry for letting him go, and he will come up with a story that will earn him the highest award in the journalism world―the Pulitzer Prize. His latest subject is a 16-year-old drug dealer who confesses to killing one of his lady clients. Using the boy’s mother as bait to get access to the story he wants and needs, Jack stumbles upon facts that stun him―the confession is fake and the story is much bigger than what he thinks it is. Working with Rachel Walling of the FBI, Jack is on the trail of a deadly killer who has eluded every authority, unbeknown to him that this killer knows Jack is coming, and is ready with a lethal move of his own.
Praise for The Scarecrow:
“Crime fiction at its best.”
― Miami Herald
Nine Dragons (2009)
A Chinese man, owner of a liquor store in LA, has been shot to death in what seems to be a robbery attempt, and Harry Bosch has to find the killer. After careful investigation, Bosch has a suspect, a man belonging to a trio from Hong Kong. But soon events unfold, which challenge Bosch to his very core―his young daughter who lives in Hong Kong, goes missing. And it is slowly becoming apparent that her kidnapping might be intricately linked to the case in LA. Leaving everything to look for his daughter, Bosch has to solve a case he cannot afford to lose, with his daughter on the line.
Praise for Nine Dragons:
“If at first encounter Connelly seems primarily an exceptionally accomplished writer of crime novels, at closer examination he is also a mordant and knowing chronicler of the world in which crime takes place, i.e., our world.”
― Washington Post
The Reversal (2010)
Jason Jessup has spent 24 long years in prison for the brutal murder of a child and has just been cleared from all accusations thanks to a new DNA test report. Mickey Haller, defense attorney, is hired to represent the city against Jessup, and he has to prove that Jessup is, indeed, guilty. Haller has been granted the privilege to choose his own team―his ex-wife as his co-prosecutor, and detective Harry Bosch as his investigator. They get together to win the case against the bloodthirsty Jessup, and for that they need to outsmart Jessup’s lawyer for whom manipulation is a game which he always wins. With everything against them, Haller and Bosch have to unmask Jessup before he can kill again.
Praise for The Reversal:
“Michael Connelly at the top of his game with The Reversal”
― Sun Sentinel
The Fifth Witness (2011)
With the economy going downhill by the day, Mickey Haller finds that even criminals are more than reluctant to pay a lawyer. In such a situation, Mickey has no option but to turn to cases where he could help people save their homes from getting confiscated by the banks. It is during these cases that something very dramatic comes along―his very first foreclosure client, Lisa is accused of murdering the banker set out to confiscate her home. For Mickey, this is the best that could happen―he finally has a case that is related to what he loves doing. However, the defense isn’t as uncomplicated as he thinks. In fact, he just might learn a thing or two about his client, and get into trouble that may change his life, forever.
Praise for The Fifth Witness:
“….Keyed with suspense and last minute surprises, Michael Connelly’s latest courtroom procedural will keep you reading and guessing to the end. Editor’s recommendation.”
― Barnes and Noble
The Drop (2011)
Harry Bosch suddenly has two inexplicable cases to take care of. A 29-year-old rapist has been accused of murder that was committed in 1989, because of a new DNA test result. The result throws up two very strange possibilities―either the man was 8 when he committed the murder, or the Crime Lab has made a factual error. The second possibility would cause an uproar in all the cases that were using DNA tests for their trials currently. To add to the mayhem, councilman Irving’s son has either committed suicide or has been murdered, and Bosch has been ordered to look into that too. Shocking revelations follow his investigation―there is a sadistic killer on the loose since several years, and games in the police department that would stun all those who heard about them.
Praise for The Drop:
“…The Drop is one of those Harry Bosch books that starts with a bang and stays strong all the way through.”
― New York Times
The Black Box (2012)
Bosch has made a startling discovery. A bullet used in a recent crime has been interconnected to the murder of a young journalist 20 years ago, a murder that has never been solved, a murder that still haunts him. Bosch is determined to not let the killer get away this time and is on a hunt for that one important piece of evidence that will solve the case once and for all.
Praise for The Black Box:
“Oh well, just another superb, ambitious murder mystery from one of the best writers in the business, featuring perhaps the best fictional detective in crime fiction. It has been 20 years since Michael Connelly published his first novel, The Black Echo, and in all that time he hasn’t put a foot wrong. THE BLACK BOX keeps his streak alive.”
― Toronto Globe and Mail
The Gods of Guilt (2013)
When Mickey Haller learns of a murder in LA, he rushes to the site to get the case before anyone else. The first thing he learns at the site is that the victim was his former client, a prostitute Mickey had helped to get out of the dark nightlife. Gloria, the victim, hadn’t gotten out of that world like Mickey had thought, but was very much a part of it, till she was murdered. Mickey has the weight of guilt on his shoulders now―was he the one who put her in trouble? Mickey now has to give this case all he can, and either accept his part in her death, or put his conscience to rest.
Praise for The Gods of Guilt:
“….This latest outing offers unfettered pleasure to regular readers, and a terrific introduction to new ones.”
― Boston Globe
The Burning Room (2014)
Yes, 2014! The book will release in November, and the previews are very promising. Harry Bosch has a new partner―young Lucia Soto, who has absolutely no experience in homicide. So when a puzzling case comes up, she is unsurprisingly of no help. The case is baffling even for someone like Bosch, when a person hit by a bullet a decade ago, dies. They have the body to inspect, but no other clues that can help them. Through relentless investigations, they have to go back to past incidents and events that may have influenced the shooting. They also find themselves being led to another case, a terrible fire that claimed the lives of several children two decades ago, a case that could have dangerous outcomes. Will Bosch go as far as to risk his entire career for solving the case? Knowing Connelly’s hero, nothing can be predicted!
Well, now that you have a complete list of Michael Connelly’s books, you can quickly catch up on the ones you may have missed. If you haven’t tried reading his work yet, you can now select the one you want to begin with. Click here to buy his books.
If you already have read all of them, grab your favorite one and enjoy the thrill, all over again. Which one is your favorite? Do tell us in the comments below, we’d love to know!
