Michael Connelly Books in Order – Complete List

New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly is an amazing American author best known for his Harry Bosch book series, which was recently televised by Amazon, with Titus Welliver playing the main character.

Here are all the Michael Connelly books in order of reading and publication order for the Harry Bosch novels, followed by Connelly’s other series including The Lincoln Lawyer Mickey Haller, Terry McCaleb, Jack McEvoy, Renée Ballard, and the latest Detective Stillwell series.

Latest Michael Connelly Books

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Harry Bosch Books in Publication Order

while other related characters appear in some of the books, this series is strictly about Harry Bosch

1. The Black Echo, 1992
2. The Black Ice, 1993
3. The Concrete Blonde, 1994
4. The Last Coyote, 1995
5. Trunk Music, 1997
6. Angels Flight, 1999
7. A Darkness More Than Night, 2001
8. City Of Bones, 2002
9. Lost Light, 2003
10. The Narrows, 2004
11. The Closers, 2005
12. Echo Park, 2006
13. The Overlook, 2007
14. Nine Dragons, 2009
15. The Drop, 2011
16. The Black Box, 2012
17. The Burning Room, 2014
18. The Crossing, 2015
19. The Wrong Side of Goodbye, 2016
20. Two Kinds of Truth, 2017
21. Dark Sacred Night, 2018
22. The Night Fire, 2019
23. The Dark Hours, 2021
24. Desert Star, 2022
25. The Waiting, 2024

Harry Bosch Short Stories

• Blue on Black (#14.5), 2010
• Suicide Run (#14.6), 2011 (includes: Cielo Azul, Suicide Run, One Dollar Jackpot)
• Angle Of Investigation (#15.5), 2011 (includes: Father’s Day, Christmas Eve, Angle of Investigation)
• Switchblade (#16.5), 2014

Lincoln Lawyer Books in Publication Order

1. The Lincoln Lawyer, 2004
2. The Brass Verdict, 2008
3. The Reversal, 2010
4. The Fifth Witness, 2011
5. The Gods Of Guilt, 2013
6. The Crossing, 2015 (#5.5)
7. The Law of Innocence, 2020
8. Resurrection Walk, 2023

Other Lincoln Lawyer Books

• The Lincoln Lawyer: A Mysterious Profile, 2022

Terry McCaleb Books in Publication Order

1. Blood Work, 1998
2. A Darkness More Than Night, 2000

Jack McEvoy Books in Publication Order

1. The Poet, 1996
2. The Scarecrow, 2009
3. Fair Warning, 2020

Renée Ballard Books in Publication Order

1. The Late Show, 2017
2. Dark Sacred Night, 2018
3. The Night Fire, 2019
4. The Dark Hours, 2021
5. Desert Star, 2022
6. The Waiting, 2024

Detective Stillwell Books in Publication Order

1. Nightshade, 2025

Standalone Novels in Order of Publication

• Chasing the Dime, 2003
• Void Moon, 2004

Harry Bosch Universe Books in Reading Order

All the books featuring Harry Bosch in order of reading. Whenever Bosch or related other characters are in a book, they are included in the list.

Novellas and Short Stories in Publication Order

• Two Bagger, 2007
• The Safe Man, 2012
• Red Eye, 2014 (with Dennis Lehane)

Anthologies and Short Story Collections in Publication Order

Non-Fiction Books

• Crime Beat, 2006
• Hieronymus Bosch: A Mysterious Profile, 2022

Michael Connelly Biography

Michael Connelly was born in 1956 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When he was 12 years old, his family moved to  Fort Lauderdale, Florida. There he enrolled at St. Thomas Aquinas High School.

The author’s introduction to the world of crime happened in an entirely random way. One evening he was going home from his job as a dishwasher at a hotel. He suddenly noticed someone throw something into the bushes. Curious as he was, he checked out those bushes and found a gun wrapped in a shirt.

He got even more curious, so he decided to follow that person, on a trek that took him to a nearby bar. He then went home to tell his dad about the guy in the bar. Together, they went to the police, and he led them to the hidden gun. By then, the suspect was gone from the bar.

However, he was thoroughly fascinated with the way the police handled that case, and he couldn’t get that event out of his mind.

He continued his studies and enrolled at the University of Florida in Gainesville with a major in building construction, as he wanted to follow his father’s job. His grades were, however, not up to par. After watching Robert Altman’s 1973 adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s book The Long Goodbye, he decided that he wanted to become a crime fiction book author. The movie was based on Raymond Chandler’s 1953 novel, so he began reading everything the author has written. It basically inspired Connelly even more to start his own author journey.

Thus, the author switched his major from construction to journalism. His minor was in creative writing, which helped him develop as a book writer. After he graduated from the university in 1980, he became a crime-beat writer at the  Daytona Beach News Journal. Next year, he moved to work for the Fort Lauderdale News and Sun-Sentinel again as an investigative reporter.

In 1985 he was one of the reporters to interview the survivors of the Delta Flight 191 plane crash. The story he wrote thereafter made him a candidate for the Pulitzer Prize. In 1987 he moved to Los Angeles, California with his family, where he began working for the Los Angeles Times as a crime reporter.

He had been working for the newspaper for three years when he wrote The Black Echo, his debut novel. The book was published in 1992 by Little, Brown. That book earned him the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award for Best First Novel. The book is also the first in the Harry (Hieronymus) Bosch series.

While working for the Los Angeles Times, Connely wrote three books, The Black Ice, The Concrete Blonde, and The Last Coyote, all part of the Harry Bosch novel series. Soon after, he resigned and became a full-time author.

Michael Connelly continued his series until 1996 when he wrote The Poet. It was to become the first book in his Jack McEvoy series. The next year he wrote The Trunk Music, which went back to the popular Harry Bosch book series.

After that, he once again diverged from his main series when he wrote Blood Work, the first book in his Terry McCaleb FBI Agent series. This was in 1998. Four years later, in 1992, the movie made based on Blood Work starring Clint Eastwood was released, where Eastwood played Terry McCaleb and also directed the movie. Other notable actors were Jeff Daniels and Anjelica Houston.

For his numerous books, Michael Connelly received several awards, including the Edgar Award, the Anthony Award, the Macavity Award, the Shamus Award, and the Barry Award, as well as several international awards from countries like Italy, France, and Japan.

Many of his books are written surrounding actual, real-life events, including the 9/11 attack. Most characters in the series appear in the same universe and often crossover from series to series. In the latest series, LAPD detective Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch work together in solving cases.

In 2004, a video documentary titled Blue Neon Night: Michael Connelly’s Los Angeles was released in the form of DVD. This was accompanying the author’s book The Narrows (which also features FBI agent Rachel Walling).

Besides his several mystery and thriller series, the author also wrote a nonfiction book called Crime Beat, which was published in 2006.

An interesting trivia note, one of his biggest fans is the ex-US president Bill Clinton, who was seen reading The Concrete Blonde. The two men met at an airport later on.

The Harry Bosch series order includes all the rest of the author’s books as well since they are all part of the Harry Bosch universe. In fact, even the standalone books are part of the same universe.

Michael Connelly has written so far two main series, the Harry Bosch and the Mickey Haller series, and a few smaller series including the Terry McCaleb, Jack McEvoy and the newer LAPD detective Renée Ballard series all in the same universe. Most of these series also intersect with the author’s main one, so I have added them to this page as well. Thus reading the Michael Connely books is advised reading in order, along with all the related stories in the same universe featuring other main characters.

Michael Connelly also wrote one non fiction book in 2006 called Crime Beat, which collected journalism from his work at the Los Angeles Times and the Sun-Sentinel.

Michael Connelly Book Adaptations

• Blood Work was adapted in 2002 into a movie directed by Clint Eastwood. The movie starred Clint Eastwood (as Terry McCaleb), Wanda De Jesus, Jeff Daniels, Paul Rodriguez, and Tina Lifford as main characters.
• Lincoln Lawyer was made into a 2011 movie with Matthew McConaughey (as Mickey Haller), Marisa Tomei, Josh Lucas, Ryan Phillippe, and John Leguizamo as main characters.
• It was also adapted into a Netflix TV series in 2022 with the following main cast: Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (as Mickey Haller), Becki Newton, Neve Campbell, Angus Sampson, and Jazz Raycole. The series had so far two seasons between 2022 and 2023, with a third season consisting of 10 episodes based on The Gods of Guilt airing either late 2024 or early 2025.
• Bosch is a 2014 TV series adaptation of the book series with Titus Welliver (as Harry Bosch), Amy Aquino, Jamie Hector, Lance Reddick, and Sarah Clarke as other main protagonists. The series ran for 7 seasons, and it ended in 2021.
• Bosch: Legacy is a spin-off series aired in 2022 with two seasons in 2022 and 2023, with a third season expected to air in March 2025.
• A new Bosch spin-off series will be aired in late 2025, featuring Maggie Q as Renée Ballard.

Michael Connelly Awards and Nominations

Here are all the major awards Michael Connelly has received over the years for his bestseller books.

Should We Read the Michael Connelly Books in Order?

I’ve read all the LAPD detective Harry Bosch stories in chronological order so far (including the related legal thriller Lincoln Lawyer series, the Renée Ballard books, and all the rest) and personally, I think reading them in order is best. Granted, each novel has one mystery that Harry solves, however, the character really grows from book to book.

You can see in each of the novels that the author gets more and more attached to Harry Bosch and really writes about him with a passion. It is a pity to miss out on that.

About LAPD Homicide Detective Harry Bosch

Harry Bosch is a Los Angeles Police Department detective who retired and became a private investigator for a couple of books, following which he returned to LAPD’s Open Unsolved Unit. His mother was a prostitute and his father a defense attorney.

In the first novel, Harry Bosch is accused of killing a Vietnam “tunnel rat” whom he happened to know many lifetimes ago. I remember the book was full of atmosphere and a fast read. It literally hooked me on the series and I have read everything he has written since then.

In Two Kinds of Truth, published in 2017, Harry Bosch is a volunteer cold case cop at SFPD and is asked to help with a case involving a pharmacy where a young employee was murdered.

At the same time, he gets involved in a case started by the newly created LAPD Conviction Integrity Unit, which tells him that signs are showing that he mishandled some old cases back when he was working for the police.

Since he left the police on relatively bad terms, his old colleagues are not overly eager to help him save his reputation. Now Harry has to work the murder case while trying to get to the bottom of who framed him and how he can clear his name and reputation as well.

In Desert Star, published in 2022, Detective Harry Bosch teams up once again with Renee Ballard.

Are Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller related?

Yes, indeed they are. TMickey Haller is Harry Bosch’s half-brother. Both have the same father, J. Michael Haller, however, they have different mothers.

Mickey Haller’s mother is a Mexican-born B-level actress about whom very little is known from the books or the TV series.

Harry Bosch’s mother is Marjorie Lowe, who was basically a prostitute in Hollywood who got pregnant after having sex with Harry’s father once. She died in 1961 (was murdered).

Harry Bosch was already an adult when he first met Mickey Haller and their father. At the time, Mickey was only five.

There are a few books in the Mickey Haller series that also have Harry in them but not as the main character. While some Haller books only mention Harry in passing, some feature the two of them working together, like in The Crossing.

Harry is the ultimate detective. Initially, all the cases seem hopeless and unsolvable, but Harry is the one who finds something small that belongs to the case.

Once he finds that short thread, he follows it until he uncovers more threads, and follows there too, just like a dog following a strong smell, right until he solves the case. I really like his reluctance to give up on a case because he knows it will unravel in front of his eyes if he only keeps at it a bit more.

Harry’s daughter, Maddie, who initially was mostly living with her mother, Eleanor, the ex-wife of Harry, also appeared. The two lived in Hong Kong and only meet Harry a couple of times a year until eventually Eleanor was killed while trying to save Maddie from Chinese gangsters. After the funeral, Maddie went to live with her father.

Where else has Harry Bosch appeared in books?

LAPD detective Harry Bosch has made several cameo appearances in books by Robert Crais, Joe Gores, and Paula Woods.

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