Doesn’t get any Better Than This

John Guillen23 Comments

I’ve said on here plenty of times that Michael Connelly is one of my favorite authors. He is. But there’s more.

There are plenty of crime writers today, and some good ones, but I don’t think anyone writes the genre better than he does. The stories. The characters. And most importantly, Harry Bosch. They’re all intensely great.

I just finished The Black Box last week and though I’m well accustomed to his work by now, I was still quite impressed as I reached the end of the book. I won’t tell you to start his Harry Bosch series, but man I love it.

Which authors seem to dominate a genre to you? Any genre.

23 thoughts on “Doesn’t get any Better Than This”

  1. That’s actually a hard question to answer. By the way, I’m as big a Michael Connelly and character Harry Bosch fan as you. Robert B. Parker absolutely dominated the detective genre.

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  5. Well, if we’re talking any genre, I’d say it would be impossible for another author to write about a boy magician living in a boarding school for, ooh, … a generation at the very least (even though JK isn’t really writing Potter at the moment).
    I’m a bit of a genre butterfly, not really specialising in any, but Neil Gaiman (who wrote Coraline) is the king of magical fantasy for me – not the sword and sorcery type, but urban fantasy, I guess you might call it. You never know what might be living in the skirting boards with Gaiman at the helm 🙂

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      • Sorry, thought I’d read any genre somewhere 🙂 Not a big expert in crime fiction – I read Bloodstream by Tess Gerritsen a while back and didn’t think much to her characterisation: the people seemed a bit 2D to me. I did read The Axeman’s Jazz by Ray Celestin and thought that was great – you really got to know the people (crims and coppers). But that’s his only novel to date.
        Sorry, not much use 🙂

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      • Fun fact: when I was in college I bought The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen because there was a girl with pretty eyes who recommended it to me. Earlier today I sold it at my Half Price Books because it sat on my TBR shelf for three years. I wasn’t ever going to read it. I don’t know if I even remember that girl’s name now. Whoops. You’ve only read TWO crime novels!? How!?

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      • Haha! Well, I did read a lot of British writer Ellis Peters books when I was in my teens (they’re set in the 12th century and have a monk as the sleuth!) But, yes, it does seem a big genre to ignore, doesn’t it? My problem is, I don’t like ‘torture porn’ stories with serial killers and a high body count – the inventive lengths some writers go to to create new ways to die is extraodinary.
        As you’re a bit of an expert on the genre, got any recommendations for me? Has to have good strong characters, though – as well written as poss please 🙂
        Oh and have you read any Tess Gerritson at all? Be interested to know what you think if you have – she’s hugely successful, though I couldn’t really see why myself.

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      • Hmmm. I actually rarely read stories about serial killers. I’m going to forget that I don’t recommend books to people just for you. In my post about missed author events I mentioned three authors. Those are the three I’ll recommend to someone looking to start reading crime fiction. Every one of them is absolutely elite in the genre. I’ll even tell you the first in their respective series.

        Robert B. Parker. Spenser series. The Godwulf Manuscript.

        Michael Connelly. Harry Bosch. The Black Echo.

        Robert Crais. Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. The Monkey’s Raincoat.

        Bosch is an LAPD detective and the other two are probably the two best PI’s I’ve ever read. They’re fairly similar, and both great. Elvis Cole is in LA. Spenser is in Boston. And I haven’t read Tess Gerritsen.

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      • Thanks for making an exception! They all seem to be written really well – some great dialogue and cracking openings. Particularly like The Godwulf Manuscript opener, comparing a university office with a whorehouse! Great stuff. I’ll try and search them out. Thank you again 🙂

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