The author, most recently, of “The Gods of Guilt” would love to have met Raymond Chandler: “I’d say, Ray, can a writer be happy and still be good at it?” Or does it take a life of trouble?
Michael Connelly - Illustration by Jillian Tamaki
Tell us about your favorite book of the year.
I think I’ll go with nonfiction and pick “Act of War: Lyndon Johnson, North Korea, and the Capture of the Spy Ship Pueblo,” by Jack Cheevers. I worked with Cheevers in the early ’90s. He was a very good reporter then, and all those skills are on display in this page-turner, which jumps between high politics in Washington and the gripping high-seas journey of the spy ship in 1968. This book held me like “Flyboys” and “Lost in Shangri-La.”
When and where do you like to read?
I mostly read on airplanes and right before sleep. I admit my reading time is limited because I can write in the situations and places where people usually read. But reading is the fuel — it’s inspiring — so I try to keep the tank full. What happens most of the time is, I binge read. I will put aside a day or two to do nothing but read. I did that recently with Stephen King’s “Doctor Sleep.”
Of the books you’ve written, which is your favorite?
I know I am supposed to say “The Gods of Guilt” here, since I just wrote it, but my favorite will probably always be “The Last Coyote,” because it was the first book I wrote as a full-time author, and I think the improvements were more evident to me than in the transitions between other books. But don’t confuse “favorite” book with “best” book. I am not sure I could pick a book that I would say is my best. I hope I haven’t written it yet.
You’ve said that your mother introduced you to crime fiction. Which books got you hooked?
She was into P. D. James and Agatha Christie, and I liked it, but I would not say I got hooked in until I started reading John D. MacDonald, who was writing about the place where I was growing up. His character Travis McGee kept his boat, the Busted Flush, at the Bahia Mar Marina in Fort Lauderdale. I worked there while in high school, and my boss was named in a couple of the novels. They also kept a slip open for the Flush. I thought that was pretty cool.
Who’s your favorite fictional detective? And the best villain?
It’s got to be Philip Marlowe as the detective. He had an unmatchable mixture of sardonic humor, weariness and resolve. I’ll go with Francis Dolarhyde from Thomas Harris’s “Red Dragon” as the villain. He remains in the shadow of Hannibal Lecter, but I find him more realistic and a reminder that these sorts of killers are more banal than genius. That makes them scarier.
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