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Michael Connelly's Los Angeles
"Michael Connelly's Los Angeles" is a limited edition Zagat guide that was produced for and given away at the 2008 BookExpo America conference in Los Angeles in May 2008. This guidebook contains Zagat reviews for 100 restaurants, bars, and attractions in Los Angeles — all places mentioned in Michael's books. It also includes a listing of Michael's favorite places in Los Angeles. It's a unique collector's item as well as a useful guide.
We recently challenged members of this site's Mailing List to tell us about their favorite Los Angeles scene or location from one of Michael's books. Thirty winners were picked from all of the entries, each winning a copy of the guide. The winners came from Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Oregon, Arizona, Washington, California, Massachusetts, Georgia, Texas, France, Sweden, Japan, and the UK. Here is a sampling of some of the winning responses:
Harry Bosch's House.
"Perched on stilts and hanging over the canyon, it's a quintessentially
L.A. house and therefore evokes a very particular sense of place and one which Michael has exploited wonderfully again and again. ...For Harry, his house is truly a refuge for him and there is a metaphor in his
driving down into the city to do his work and rising back up from the city to reach his home, above the smog, the fray, the traffic, etc. Almost like the way jazz acts as a solace for him, his house allows him
to exist apart from and "of" L.A. even though he is so close and geographically right in the middle of it."
Musso & Frank's Grill
"Musso & Frank's Grill deserves its honorable place in the
life of the City of Bones. Not only is it Harry Bosch's hangout of choice, but it remains the literary headquarters of L.A. Noir. Where else in the City of Angels can you have a steak cooked to perfection and a
properly stirred martini while being allowed, uninterrupted, to pursue Raymond Chandler in the capitol of his creative inspiration!"
Union Station
"In one of Harry's numerous forays into the
heart of the city, he takes a walk with his partner, Kiz Rider, to get time to confer with her about the case with no one to overhear. They take off afoot from Parker Center and walk down to Union Station. Union
Station is in my mind's eye all mixed together, but beautiful, a hodgepodge that I always like to think that the Pueblo de los Angeles can become, someday...a mix of all that is greater than the sum of its parts."
High Tower Apartments
"I love the High Tower in Echo Park. The way Harry looks out over the city. You can just see the wheels turning in his head. And the comment, 'I got a bad feeling about this.'"
The Pantry
"I remember reading in one of the first novels about a restaurant that was open 24/7.
Harry Bosch knew of it because it had the reputation of always having at least one customer in it. Harry Bosch walked in late one night, just as the one customer there was on his way out. That scene stuck with me. Understated, typical Connelly. Later, I asked around, and found out about The Pantry on Figueroa."
Mulholland Drive
"I am a sales rep and Los Angeles is part of
my territory. Trying to take the "back roads" to a customer, I became lost and ended up on a very residential part of Mulholland Drive. Looking down from up there, I was suddenly in a very Harry Bosch
frame of mind. I pulled the car over and searched and searched until I found KJAZ. Not at all a jazz fan at that point, I drove around all day that day and the rest of the trip with KJAZ playing."
Nat's Bar
"My favorite spot of Mr. Connelly's is Nat's Bar. I
have never been to L.A. but live in Boston and can appreciate a dive bar when I read about one. Mr. Connelly knows how to paint a picture as well as anyone in literature, and his descriptions are always dead on. So
while I may have never been there, I can visualize this bar, not a hot spot, or celebrity sighting spot, but "a drinking spot" when I read about it."
Farmer's Market
"I'm secretly in love with Harry Bosch and I
think my husband is suspicious. I think he began to wonder when I said let's go to L.A. and go to the Farmer's Market because Harry, from the book I was reading, had been there! We set out very early one Saturday
morning and arrived at Du-Par's before the crowd. Of course I had pancakes!
It felt wonderful to sit out on the patio and enjoy the morning. After breakfast we wandered around the market and came across the bakery and the spot where you can see the cake decorator at work. While the decorator wasn't there for us, I remember thinking this is where, when Harry was a young boy, his mother held him up to watch the cake decorator. Yet, unbeknownst to his mother, Harry wasn't watching the decorator but looking at his mother's reflection in the window."
Harry's Balcony
"Harry's balcony on Woodrow Wilson. Fragments
of paper from his beer bottle label drifting down; hawks soaring; maybe a coyote calling and Harry getting a few moment's deserved respite from all the pressure as he sips an Anchor Steam. Looking over the city at
night and aware of the traffic below on the Hollywood Freeway. A small piece of heaven on earth for a man who confronts hell every day of his working life."
The Los Angeles River
"If I must choose only one scene it would have to be the one at the end of The Narrows. Michael takes the reader through an L.A. rainstorm that only happens once every 100 years
or so. Harry says this rain storm could be as devastating as the previous year's fires, so right away the reader understands the seriousness of the situation, and to make matters worse, he is chasing a serial killer
through this storm. My favorite L.A. scene happens in the river that when flooded used to wipe out most of the city before it was contained by concrete which now supposedly keeps everyone safe. Since he was a kid,
Harry has referred to this place as the narrows. I imagine this spot as a part of L.A. that most tourists wouldn't know existed, and wouldn't care about even if they did know."
Avalon, Catalina Island
"In A Darkness More Than Night I found not only my favorite location but also a favorite scene. In the scene, Harry Bosch goes to Avalon to see Terry McCaleb. He goes to Terry's house and finds Terry's wife, Graciela, there. She picks up a pair of binoculars and looks out a window and down at the harbor to see if Terry is on his boat. This scene is remarkable because one of the island's sayings is, "the hills have eyes and the harbor has ears." It is told to countless youth to prevent them from doing anything wrong because if they did either the eyes in the hills or the ears in the harbor would know and mom and dad would find out. I was amazed that Michael knew this and I loved that he incorporated it into the book."
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