Michael Connelly

And I saw a film version of The Long Goodbye that was set in contemporary Los Angeles.

It was set in 1973.

And it was an update of his book that was 20 years old or so at that time.

And I loved the movie, so I went and bought the paperback that had Elliot Gould, the star of the movie, on it and read that book, and it really turned my head.

And so then I went back to the bookstore and got his other novels and read all of them, stopped going to class, just sat there and read them.

Then I read them all again, and when I was done, I said, this is what I want to try to do with my life.

I want to try to write crime novels that come alive like his and connect the character to his place in the world so well.

There's stuff that's close.

I'm always going to have him as the one that brought me to this interview we're having.

But, you know, there was other people writing around that same time.

Ross McDonald, for example, wrote private eye novels that were set in Southern California and they were

A repeated theme of how the past informs the present and how the past can like stick a bony hand out of the ground and grab you by the ankle when you think you're getting away.

And really great books.

And then there is Joseph Wambaugh, who is an LAPD detective who started writing novels and true nonfiction as well.

And I gravitated towards his books as well.

So those are the big three that really kind of formed my view of what I wanted to do, hopefully, as a writer.

Oh, there's lots of those.

You know, L.A.

in particular, Joan Didion, Play It As It Lays.

There's a book, a novel called Ragtime by E.L.