Florence, June 26, 2024 – “Justice only occasionally coincides with law and order.” This phrase is one of the many that have remained engraved in my head while reading the books of Michael Connelly, perhaps the greatest star-spangled noir author to date. If my (poor) knowledge of math doesn’t give me away, I am 35 books churned out since 1992 to date from Connelly. And since his first, The Mouse’s Memory, number one in the sales charts has been a constant.
But why him among so many? The reasons are different: he writes simply, which does not mean simplistic but means writing “for” the reader and not to show the reader how good you are and “you know” (a fatal mistake that many writers and journalists make); for this purpose, he uses a basic syntax, short sentences, with a perfect choice of punctuation (an ability that is the fruit of the years spent in his youth as a crime reporter for the “Los Angeles Times”); a choice of characters characterized impeccably, by its first hero, the detective Harry Bosch today’s private investigator, to the lawyer Michael Haller, from the policewoman Renée Ballard to the journalist Jack McEvoy; and finally, stories very much anchored in reality, plausible and intersecting.
It is no coincidence that his characters have been happily translated onto the big and small screen, making Connelly a recognisable, authoritative and transversal brand, such as, for example, Stephen King. Joking, but not too much, I always say that when I grow up I would like to be Michael Connelly, a journalist who was able to transform his talent in writing (because there is nothing more difficult than simple writing) into something that goes well beyond news or the search for news.
Every year, Connelly produces a book and this one “The Day of Innocence” it is the last one released in Italy, at the end of 2023, which suggests that we will read a new one by the end of the year. AND’ a beautiful journey inside the American justice system, whose structural imperfection is well known to regular readers of masters of legal thrillers Scott Turow (who actually invented it with “Presumed Innocent”) and John Grisham.
You can also start with this book, its stories are always self-contained, but recovering them all, and reading them in chronological order, will give you a priceless summer.
