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* CuffsOffRubWrists: ''9 Dragons'', ''Trunk Music'', ''Lost Light'', ''The Crossing''.

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* CuffsOffRubWrists: ''9 Dragons'', ''Trunk Music'', ''The Overlook'', ''Lost Light'', ''The Crossing''.Crossing''.
** In ''Trunk Music'' the bad guy rubs his wrists after overpowering Bosch and Edgar and forcing them at gunpoint to give him the handcuff keys.

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* TheInternetIsForPorn: ''Chasing the Dime'', in which software designer Henry Pierce gets fixated on an Internet call girl and winds up in a lot of trouble. In ''The Gods of Guilt'' the murder suspect is a digital pimp who handled Internet advertising for several hookers.

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* TheInternetIsForPorn: ''Chasing the Dime'', in which software designer Henry Pierce gets fixated on an Internet call girl and winds up in a lot of trouble. In ''The Gods of Guilt'' the murder suspect is a digital pimp who handled Internet advertising for several hookers. In ''Angels Flight'', Bosch's investigation leads him to a dominatrix who advertises on the Internet--which leads him to a far darker example of this trope, namely, a child porn ring.


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* BondageIsBad: At one point Bosch's investigation leads him to a dominatrix's apartment. He interviews her while she's all geared up in a fetish outfit. The narration calls it "a depressing male fantasy."
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* NoNameGiven: The chief of the LAPD, first mentioned in ''The Last Coyote'' and referenced or appearing in several novels after. Described as a large, handsome black man, generally honorable, helps Harry Bosch out a time or two. He is only called "Chief" or "the Chief" and his name is never mentioned.

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** [[ContrivedCoincidence Entirely by chance]], while on an investigation Bosch runs across old girlfriend Eleanor Wish in Las Vegas in ''Trunk Music''. Also in ''Trunk Music'', after spending much of the novel looking for a particular Las Vegas stripper and not finding her, Bosch finally encounters her--on a random beach in Hawaii, while he's on vacation, after the case has been closed.


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* ContrivedCoincidence: Entirely by chance]], while on an investigation Bosch runs across old girlfriend Eleanor Wish in Las Vegas. At the end, after spending much of the novel looking for a particular Las Vegas stripper and not finding her, Bosch finally encounters her--on a random beach in Hawaii, while he's on vacation, after the case has been closed.
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** [[ContrivedCoincidence Entirely by chance]], while on an investigation Bosch runs across old girlfriend Eleanor Wish in Las Vegas in ''Trunk Music''.

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** [[ContrivedCoincidence Entirely by chance]], while on an investigation Bosch runs across old girlfriend Eleanor Wish in Las Vegas in ''Trunk Music''. Also in ''Trunk Music'', after spending much of the novel looking for a particular Las Vegas stripper and not finding her, Bosch finally encounters her--on a random beach in Hawaii, while he's on vacation, after the case has been closed.

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[[AC:Angels Flight]]
* TeethClenchedTeamwork: Bosch is assigned to a special task force for the Howard Elias case that includes John Chastain, his arch-enemy from Internal Affairs. Ultimately subverted when Chastain turns out to be the murderer.

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* NighthawksShot: In 'The Black Echo'', Harry Bosch's girlfriend, FBI agent Eleanor Wish, has a framed print of ''Nighthawks''. They commisserate on how they've found each other, two loners together, with Eleanor even calling the two of them "a couple of nighthawks." When Bosch meets her again after several years apart in ''Trunk Music'', she still has the ''Nighthawks'' print, and Bosch wonders, after years of separation between them, if he is actually the man alone in the painting.

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* NighthawksShot: In 'The ''The Black Echo'', Harry Bosch's girlfriend, FBI agent Eleanor Wish, has a framed print of ''Nighthawks''. They commisserate on how they've found each other, two loners together, with Eleanor even calling the two of them "a couple of nighthawks." When Bosch meets her again after several years apart in ''Trunk Music'', she still has the ''Nighthawks'' print, and Bosch wonders, after years of separation between them, if he is actually the man alone in the painting.
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* NighthawksShot: In 'The Black Echo'', Harry Bosch's girlfriend, FBI agent Eleanor Wish, has a framed print of ''Nighthawks''. They commisserate on how they've found each other, two loners together, with Eleanor even calling the two of them "a couple of nighthawks." When Bosch meets her again after several years apart in ''Trunk Music'', she still has the ''Nighthawks'' print, and Bosch wonders, after years of separation between them, if he is actually the man alone in the painting.

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* DownerBeginning: The opening reveals that a client who Haller got off of a drunk driving rap then proceeded to kill a mother and daughter in another drunk driving accident. This destroyed Haller's campaign for District Attorney and permanently estranged him from his wife and daughter.

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* DownerBeginning: The opening reveals that a client who Haller got off of a drunk driving rap then proceeded to kill a mother and daughter in another drunk driving accident. This destroyed Haller's campaign for District Attorney and permanently estranged him from his wife and daughter.









* AirVentPassageway: Thief Cassie Black uses this to get into a hotel room.
** Subverted towards the end of the novel however as the casino learned its lesson and added bars to the vents.

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* AirVentPassageway: Thief Cassie Black uses this to get into a hotel room.
**
room. Subverted towards the end of the novel however as the casino learned its lesson and added bars to the vents.






** There's a quote in the book from the Bible, specifically from the Epistle to Titus. When the book was published in November 2014, the first season of {{Bosch}} had aired just a few months earlier, starring Titus Welliver in the title role. On top of that, Titus Welliver read the audiobook version of ''The Burning Room''.

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** There's a quote in the book from the Bible, specifically from the Epistle to Titus. When the book was published in November 2014, the first season of {{Bosch}} ''Series/{{Bosch}}'' had aired just a few months earlier, starring Titus Welliver in the title role. On top of that, Titus Welliver read the audiobook version of ''The Burning Room''.


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** ''The Brass Verdict'' - Also features Harry Bosch and Jack [=McEvoy=].

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** ''The Brass Verdict'' - Also features Harry Bosch Bosch, with a cameo by and Jack [=McEvoy=].



* CuffsOffRubWrists: ''9 Dragons'', ''Trunk Music'', ''Lost Light''. In ''Lost Light'' Bosch, who is the one rubbing his wrists, comments disapprovingly about how he always thought cuffing a suspect too tightly was a cheap tactic. In ''The Burning Room'' the suspect, an anti-government, "exaggeratedly" rubs his wrists to make a point.

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* CuffsOffRubWrists: ''9 Dragons'', ''Trunk Music'', ''Lost Light''. Light'', ''The Crossing''.
**
In ''Lost Light'' Bosch, who is the one rubbing his wrists, comments disapprovingly about how he always thought cuffing a suspect too tightly was a cheap tactic. In ''The Burning Room'' the suspect, an anti-government, "exaggeratedly" rubs his wrists to make a point.point.
** In ''The Crossing'', Bosch is left rubbing his wrists after being locked up in an LAPD interrogation room for three hours.



** ''The Crossing'': Ellis and Long, two Vice cops, are the bad guys. They kill people a lot.

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** ''The Crossing'': Ellis and Long, two Vice cops, are the bad guys. They kill operate a prostitution-and-blackmail scheme, and they murder people a lot.



* TechnologyMarchesOn: Demonstrated and lampshaded by the Harry Bosch novels over a quarter century as Bosch ages in real time. In the early novels LAPD detectives are using pagers and typing out their reports on typewriters. In later novels Bosch is the last detective to still be using a typewriter, and he admits that he has to get his daughter to help him with computers.

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* TechnologyMarchesOn: Demonstrated and lampshaded by the Harry Bosch novels over a quarter century as Bosch ages in real time. In the early novels LAPD detectives are using pagers and typing out their reports on typewriters. In later novels Bosch is the last detective to still be using a typewriter, and he admits that he has to get his daughter to help him with computers. In ''The Crossing'' his young former partner Lucia Soto walks him through how to use the Uber app.



* YouJustToldMe: Mickey Haller uncovers information in this way.


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* YouJustToldMe: Mickey Haller uncovers information in this way.

way, getting Harry Bosch to inadvertenly reveal whom he was questioning over the Jerry Vincent murder.




* {{Sexiled}}: The two porn girls that Ellis and Long are running sometimes entertain johns at their apartment. They put a stuffed bear in the window as a signal to not come in.

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* ILoveTheDead: Implied with Ellis, the main villain. In the rape-murder that is the central mystery, the rape was post-mortem. And towards the end when Ellis kills the porn girls, he takes pictures after, and feels disappointed that they don't look all that dead due to their extensive facial plastic surgery.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Bosch describes "the state's former governor, cigar clenched in his teeth," who "had been a movie star"...in other words, Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger. Bosch doesn't like him.
* PinkMist: "Bosch felt a fine mist of blood hit him full in the face" after Mendenhall puts a round through the skull of the villain, Ellis.
* {{Sexiled}}: The two porn girls that Ellis and Long are running sometimes entertain johns at their apartment. They put a stuffed bear in the window as a signal to not come in. Not played for comedy, as the girls are essentially sex slaves.
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** ''The Crossing'': Ellis and Long, two Vice cops, are the bad guys. They kill people a lot.
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* TheObiWan: Bosch, who is well into his sixties and facing mandatory retirement within the year, is partnered up with 27-year-old Lucia Soto. He decides to pass on to her as much of his wisdom and detective knowledge as he can.

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* TheObiWan: Bosch, who is well into his sixties and facing mandatory retirement within the year, is partnered up with 27-year-old Lucia Soto. He decides to pass on to her as much of his wisdom and detective knowledge as he can.can.

[[AC:The Crossing]]
* {{Sexiled}}: The two porn girls that Ellis and Long are running sometimes entertain johns at their apartment. They put a stuffed bear in the window as a signal to not come in.
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** ''The Crossing'' - Also features Mickey Haller.
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** ''The Reversal'' is both Jason Jessup's murder conviction being overturned and Mickey Haller being a prosecutor instead of a defender for a change.
** ''The Fifth Witness'' is known as such for being the fifth person to be called by Mickey Haller to testify during Lisa Trammel's trial and taking the Fifth Amendment to avoid self-incrimination.


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* {{Foreshadowing}}: A criminal defense attorney tries to hire the unemployed Harry Bosch as a private investigator and Bosch refuses because he doesn't feel comfortable with the idea. In "The Crossing", he'll investigate a murder on behalf of the accused's lawyer.
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* ExactWords: Technically it wasn't a lie when the cops said Alonzo Winslow confessed. They just didn't mention the confession wasn't about the crime he was arrested for.
* LyingToThePerp: The cops questioning Alonzo Winslow employ this tactic when they tell him his hands match the strangling marks found on the victim's neck. He replies that the victim wasn't strangled. Not only he comes with a reason to know this in spite of not being the killer but he turns out to be the innocent man he claims to be.
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** In ''A Darkness More than Night'', Jack [=McEvoy=] tells Harry Bosch the bureau is after the latter and says that catching an [=LAPD=] cop for any wrongdoing is worth more than [[BoardGame/{{Monopoly}} Park Place and Boardwalk]] together.

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** In ''A Darkness More than Night'', Jack [=McEvoy=] tells Harry Bosch the bureau is after the latter and says that catching an [=LAPD=] cop for any wrongdoing is worth more than [[BoardGame/{{Monopoly}} [[TabletopGame/{{Monopoly}} Park Place and Boardwalk]] together.
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** In ''A Darkness More than Night'', Jack [=McEvoy=] tells Harry Bosch the bureau is after the latter and says that catching an [=LAPD=] cop for any wrongdoing is worth more than [[BoardGame/{{Monopoly}} Park Place and Boardwalk]] together.
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\n\n* IdenticalTwinIDTag: Jack and Sean [=McEvoy=] "had always gone to great lengths to forge separate identities".


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\n* ThereAreNoCoincidences: Irving starts pestering Bosch after the latter starts investigating an open-unsolved case Irving worked on in the past. Bosch refuses to think it's a coincidence.

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* ButForMeItWasTuesday: When Harry accuses The Poet of killing his friend, The Poet doesn't know who the friend is because he's "been kind of busy". Subverted because The Poet didn't kill Terry [=McCaleb=].
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* IncrediblyLamePun: Not wanting to tell his ex-wife why he no longer plays the saxophone, Harry Bosch says his teacher wanted him to "switch from alto to tenor - as in ''ten or'' fifteen miles away from him". The joke is, by Bosch's own admission, lame.
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* InsistentTerminology: While in Vegas, Harry met a card counter who prefers to be called an "advantage player".
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* FillNameUltimatum: "Hieronymus Bosch" is called that as a threat.

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* FillNameUltimatum: FullNameUltimatum: "Hieronymus Bosch" is called that as a threat.
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* ExactWords: To avoid telling the bad guys he's working for himself, Harry Bosch says he's "working for somebody who isn't going to stop, who isn't going to let up. Not for a minute. He's going to find out who put Angella Benton down on the tile and he'll go at it until he either dies or he knows."
* FillNameUltimatum: "Hieronymus Bosch" is called that as a threat.
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** Burnett Biggar and Miles Manley in ''Lost Light''.

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** Burnett Biggar and Biggar, Miles Manley and Bernard Banks in ''Lost Light''.

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** Burnett Biggar and Miles Manley in ''Lost Light''.





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\n* FunWithAcronyms: [=REACT=]. The agent who explains it to Bosch has some trouble remembering what it means. 'Regional Response... no, it's Rapid Enforcement Against something Terrorism, I forget the whole thing - oh, I got it, Rapid Response Enforcement And Counter-terrorism. That's it.' [=REACT=] is described as a [=BAM=] squad. By Any Means.
* MeaningfulName: Burnett Biggar and his son Andre are tall enough to deserve their surname.

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** There's a quote in the book from the Bible, specifically from the Epistle to Titus. When the book was published in November 2014, the first season of {{Bosch}} had aired just a few months earlier, starring Titus Welliver in the title role. On top of that, Titus Welliver read the audiobook version of ''The Burning Room''.
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* AlliterativeList: The case Harry Bosch is investigating is said to have "everything [=RHD=] likes in a case: movies, money and murder".
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!!Books published by MichaelConnelly (in chronological order, arranged by main character):

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!!Books published by MichaelConnelly Michael Connelly (in chronological order, arranged by main character):
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[[quoteright:208:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Michael_connelly_2007.jpg]]
'''Michael Connelly''' (born July 21, 1956, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American author of detective novels and other crime fiction, notably those featuring LAPD Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch. His books, which have been translated into 35 languages, have garnered him every major award in his genre, such as the Edgar Award, Anthony Award, Macavity Award, Los Angeles Times Best Mystery/Thriller Award, etc. Connelly was the President of the Mystery Writers of America from 2003 to 2004.

His style does not usually involve researching for his books; he says that he prefers to just write, focusing more on his characters than the surroundings. His books often reflect on events happening in the world, like the 9/11 bombings and the beating of Rodney King. Most of the events in Harry Bosch's life in his novels are loosely based on events he himself was witnessing or undergoing.

Other POV characters besides Harry Bosch include Los Angeles Times crime reporter Jack [=McEvoy=] and ethically dubious defense lawyer Mickey Haller. Characters in one series pop up in other series quite frequently, as shown below. All of his books are partly or wholly set in UsefulNotes/LosAngeles, to the extent that the series as a whole is a pretty good guided tour of the city.

Has a regular poker game with [[Series/{{Castle}} a fictional novelist]].

A series titled ''Series/{{Bosch}}'', based on the Harry Bosch character with Titus Welliver as Bosch, debuted on Amazon in 2014.
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!!Books published by MichaelConnelly (in chronological order, arranged by main character):

* The Harry Bosch Novels
** ''The Black Echo''
** ''The Black Ice'' - with a possible cameo by Mickey Haller
** ''The Concrete Blonde''
** ''The Last Coyote''
** ''Trunk Music''
** ''Angels Flight''
** ''A Darkness More Than Night'' - Also features Terry [=McCaleb=], Rachel Walling, and Jack [=McEvoy=].
** ''City of Bones''
** ''Lost Light''
** ''The Narrows'' - Also features Rachel Walling, Terry [=McCaleb=] and Cassie Black.
** ''The Closers''
** ''Echo Park'' - Also features Rachel Walling. A serial killer featured in this book was described as a former client of Mickey Haller.
** ''The Overlook'' - Also features Rachel Walling.
** ''9 Dragons'' - Also features Mickey Haller.
** ''The Reversal'' - Co-starring Mickey Haller.
** ''The Drop''
** ''The Black Box''
** ''The Burning Room''

* The Mickey Haller novels
** ''The Lincoln Lawyer''
** ''The Brass Verdict'' - Also features Harry Bosch and Jack [=McEvoy=].
** ''The Reversal'' - Co-starring Harry Bosch
** ''The Fifth Witness''- With a cameo by Harry Bosch
** ''The Gods of Guilt'' - With a cameo by Harry Bosch

* Other Novels
** ''The Poet'' - Features Rachel Walling and Jack [=McEvoy=].
** ''Blood Work'' - Features Terry [=McCaleb=].
** ''Void Moon'' - Features Cassie Black.
** ''Chasing The Dime'' - Features Henry Pierce.
** ''The Scarecrow'' - Features Rachel Walling and Jack [=McEvoy=].
** ''Suicide Run'' - Collection of short stories featuring Harry Bosch
** ''Angle of Investigation'' - Collection of short stories featuring Harry Bosch

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!!Michael Connelly novels with their own trope pages include:
** ''Film/BloodWork''
** ''Film/TheLincolnLawyer''

----
!!This author's other novels include examples of:
[[AC:General Tropes and Tropes in Multiple Novels]]
* TheAlcoholic: Broken-down Hollywood homicide cop Lucius Porter, featured in ''The Black Echo'' and ''The Black Ice''
** Sam Delacroix, murder victim's father, in ''City of Bones''
* AlliterativeName: Chief Irvin Irving, Bosch's LAPD nemesis.
** Upon learning Mickey Haller's daughter's name, a cop commented that "Hayley Haller" was a nice alliteration.
* AlwaysGetsHisMan: Detective Hieronymus Bosch, LAPD, Robbery-Homicide Division.
* AmicablyDivorced: Mickey Haller can't seem to quit dating his first ex-wife, and his second ex-wife works for him. In ''The Gods of Guilt'' his relationship with ex-wife #1 has gone frosty again, although she still encourages their daughter to have a relationship with her father.
* AmoralAttorney: Mickey Haller skirts the edge of this, and feels bad about it. He often deals with more unambiguously Amoral Attorneys.
* AsianStoreOwner: Bosch finds himself inside a convenience store owned by a Chinese man at the end of ''Angels Flight''. In ''9 Dragons'' a murder occurs at that same store, which leads to Bosch getting involved with Chinese organized crime.
* BadassGrandpa: Harry Bosch was born circa 1950. He ages in real time throughout the novel series, and by ''The Drop'' is facing imminent retirement.
* BloodFromTheMouth: ''The Overlook'', ''9 Dragons'', ''The Black Echo'', ''The Concrete Blonde'', ''Trunk Music''. In ''The Black Echo'' Bosch notes correctly that this is a sign the person has been shot in the lungs.
* TheBusCameBack: Connelly's LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters universe facilitates this.
** [[ContrivedCoincidence Entirely by chance]], while on an investigation Bosch runs across old girlfriend Eleanor Wish in Las Vegas in ''Trunk Music''.
** Bosch's old nemesis Irvin Irving returns in ''The Drop'' six years after being forced out of the LAPD at the end of ''The Closers''.
** Teresa Corazon, last seen when she was head of the medical examiner's office and star of her own reality show in ''City of Bones'', pops up again in ''The Burning Room''. She has fallen out of political favor and all the way back to her old job slicing up corpses. She tries to start up the FriendsWithBenefits thing with Bosch again but he isn't interested.
* CallBack / ContinuityNod: Many. The murder that kicks off the plot of ''9 Dragons'' happens at the same convenience store where Harry Bosch found himself at the end of ''Angels Flight''.
** Fictional film company Archway Studios pops up in ''Trunk Music'', ''The Brass Verdict'', ''A Darkness More Than Night'', ''Lost Light'', ''The Fifth Witness'', and ''The Drop''
** In ''Lost Light'' we find out that the events of ''Void Moon'' were made into a movie.
** In ''The Black Box'' Harry goes to visit the grave of the boy whose murder he investigated in ''City of Bones''.
* CanonWelding:
** ''Blood Work'' and ''The Poet'' did not have any ties to the Harry Bosch universe when they were published. However, both were connected to the rest of Connelly's books in ''Angels Flight'' (which has a CallForward to the ''Blood Work'' movie) and ''A Darkness More Than Night'' (in which Jack [=McEvoy=] has a cameo as a reporter who pesters Bosch, and Terry [=McCaleb=] is a main character).
** ''Chasing the Dime'' could have been a stand-alone novel, with its protagonist Henry Pierce being a computer software entrepreneur who does not pop up in any other Connelly book. But just to make clear that it was in the same universe, Connelly makes Pierce's dead sister a victim of The Dollmaker (a serial killer that Harry Bosch investigated and killed), and takes the prosecuting attorney from ''Angels Flight'' and makes her Pierce's lawyer.
* ChekhovsGun: In every single novel, starting with ''The Black Echo'', in which Eleanor Wish makes a random comment about how she wanted "justice" for her brother, who never came back from Vietnam. That's the motive.
** Carver delivers a long, seemingly pointless lecture about the fire extingushing system at the server farm in ''The Scarecrow''. Naturally, it proves crucial to the climax.
* ClearMyName: Mickey Haller gets this from his clients in every novel, which makes it a bummer when they turn out to be guilty. In ''The Gods of Guilt'' he finally gets a ClearMyName case where the client is actually innocent. It's portrayed as a redemptive moment for him.
* CowboyCop: Bosch. It wouldn't be a Harry Bosch novel if he weren't going off on independent ops against orders from the LAPD.
* CrusadingLawyer: Maggie [=McPherson=], Haller's fiercely idealistic ex-wife and prosecuting attorney, who disapproves of his work as a criminal defense lawyer.
* CuffsOffRubWrists: ''9 Dragons'', ''Trunk Music'', ''Lost Light''. In ''Lost Light'' Bosch, who is the one rubbing his wrists, comments disapprovingly about how he always thought cuffing a suspect too tightly was a cheap tactic. In ''The Burning Room'' the suspect, an anti-government, "exaggeratedly" rubs his wrists to make a point.
* DirtyCop: This is one of Michael Connelly's favorite tropes.
** ''The Black Echo'': The FBI agent investigating the bank robbery is in fact behind the bank robbery.
** ''The Black Ice'': An LAPD cop is a heroin kingpin, who faked his own death to boot.
** ''The Last Coyote'': An LAPD cop is enmeshed in a criminal conspiracy.
** ''Trunk Music'': The patrolman who found the body was part of the murder plot.
** ''Angels Flight'': An LAPD cop killed a troublesome attorney.
** ''Lost Light'': The crippled LAPD cop who helps Bosch is actually the murderer.
** ''Echo Park'': An LAPD cop is involved in covering up a crime, which winds up getting a couple other cops killed.
** ''The Overlook'': An FBI agent is the murderer.
** ''The Gods of Guilt'': A DEA agent planted evidence to put a murderous drug kingpin away, and killed a witness to keep her quiet.
** ''The Brass Verdict'' features a Dirty Judge.
* DisneyVillainDeath: ''Void Moon'', ''The Last Coyote'', ''The Scarecrow''
* DisposableSexWorker: Strongly averted by Bosch, what with his mother being a prostitute who was murdered.
-->'''Bosch''': "Everyone counts, or no one counts."
* DoubleMeaningTitle: Michael Connelly is a big fan of these.
** ''The Black Ice'' is a kind of heroin, and also ice on a road that symbolizes unseen danger.
** ''The Concrete Blonde'' is both a murder victim found in concrete and the statue of Justice.
** ''City of Bones'' is both the crime scene where a murder victim's 20-year-old bones are found, and all the old bones buried under the city of Los Angeles.
** ''The Drop'' is both the Deferred Retirement Option Plan that fixes a date for Bosch's retirement, and a drop of blood on the neck of a murder victim, and how the victim in the A-plot died (he fell off a hotel balcony).
** ''The Black Box'' is both the box holding the information that cracks a case, and death.
** ''The Gods of Guilt'' are both the 12 jurors in a trial, and all the people in Mickey Haller's life who judge his choices.
** ''The Burning Room'' is both a Bosch expression for an investigation that opens a door into some very serious stuff, and also the literal burning room that his partner Lucia Soto was trapped in as a little girl.
* DrivenToSuicide: ''Angels Flight'', ''City of Bones'', ''The Last Coyote''
** In ''The Gods of Guilt'' one of the bad guys is driven to shoot himself in court, while testifying.
* EmbarrassingFirstName: Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch.
* EnhanceButton: Averted in ''The Narrows'', where Harry Bosch asks for a zoomed-in digital photo to be "enhanced" and is told that it's impossible.
** Played realistically in ''9 Dragons'', with the use of a computer program to "guess" the image.
* FBIAgent: Many. Bosch marries one.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Connelly being a FairPlayWhodunnit type of author, this happens in all his novels. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in ''The Fifth Witness''. A detail (a freshly turned garden in the suspect's home) is introduced, and Mickey Haller says
--> It was what the great filmmakers would call foreshadowing.
** In the end it ''is'' foreshadowing, but in a different way from what Haller guesses.
* FriendsWithBenefits: Bosch and medical examiner Teresa Corazon in ''The Black Ice''. Bosch and LAPD makeup artist Vicki Landreth in ''The Closers''. Corazon cuts him off as she rises in LA politics.
* GenerationXerox: Madeline Bosch is a crack shot who is interested in a career in law enforcement.
* GroinAttack: ''Trunk Music''. Bosch kicks a {{Mook}} square in the nuts.
** In ''The Scarecrow'', it's how TheDragon almost gets away from Jack [=McEvoy=].
* GunStruggle: ''The Poet'', ''Lost Light''. In ''Lost Light'' Bosch opens his eyes after the Gun Struggle and finds that his opponent doesn't have a face.
* HeWhoFightsMonsters: [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] in ''The Poet''.
** Discussed again in ''Lost Light''.
** Honey Chandler in ''The Concrete Blonde'' accuses Harry Bosch of this and quotes FrederichNietzsche.
* HiredToHuntYourself:
** ''The Poet'': The FBI agent in charge of hunting down the serial killer actually is the serial killer.
** ''Angels Flight'': One of the Internal Affairs cops assigned to investigate the Howard Elias murder is the murderer.
** ''The Black Echo'': The FBI agent in charge of the bank robbery task force is the mastermind behind the bank robbery.
** ''The Overlook'': One of the FBI agents chasing supposed terrorists is actually the bad guy.
* HotScientist: Dr. Shamiram Arslanian, the forensic scientist who testifies for Mickey Haller in ''The Brass Verdict'' and ''The Fifth Witness''. Beyond her technical expertise, Haller values her for her hotness, which impresses jurors.
* InternalAffairs: The bane of Harry Bosch's existence, screwing with him in novel after novel. Finally averted in ''The Black Box'', where not only does Bosch finally encounter an honorable Internal Affairs cop, said IA cop winds up bailing Bosch out of a jam.
* TheInternetIsForPorn: ''Chasing the Dime'', in which software designer Henry Pierce gets fixated on an Internet call girl and winds up in a lot of trouble. In ''The Gods of Guilt'' the murder suspect is a digital pimp who handled Internet advertising for several hookers.
* IntrepidReporter: Jack [=McEvoy=], who tends to get hunted by murderers due to his diligence.
* ItsPersonal: In ''The Last Coyote'' Bosch investigate his mother's murder. In ''The Burning Room'', Bosch and Lucia Soto investigate the day care fire that Soto was trapped in as a child, which killed several of her friends.
* KnuckleTattoos: The murder suspect in ''The Reversal''.
** We learn in ''City of Bones'' that Harry Bosch got knuckle tattoos reading "HOLD FAST" when he was a teenager, but when he was in the Army they made him erase the tattoos by means of punching a wall until the scars obscured them.
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: All of Connelly's books take place within the same fictional universe. Note the many character crossovers in the bibliography above; even minor characters pop up in multiple novels.
* LongLostRelative: Half-brothers Mickey Haller and Harry Bosch. Contrary to how this trope usually plays out, their relationship remains awkward even after they realize this.
* NeverSuicide: ''The Black Ice'', ''The Poet''. Averted in ''The Drop'', where the guy everyone thought was a suicide at the beginning actually is a suicide.
* PantsPositiveSafety: ''The Black Ice'', ''The Brass Verdict'', ''Void Moon'', ''The Last Coyote'', ''Lost Light''
* ParentalIncest: Incest of the abusive variety in ''Angels Flight'', ''The Reversal'', and ''City of Bones''
* TheProfiler: Rachel Walling, Terry [=McCaleb=].
* RedHerring: The Chinese mafia investigation that kicks off ''9 Dragons'', the terrorism investigation in ''The Overlook'', the pursuit of skinhead suspects in ''The Closers'', etc.
* SerialKiller: Connelly is big on this trope. ''The Concrete Blonde'', ''The Poet'', ''The Narrows'', ''Echo Park'', ''The Lincoln Lawyer'', ''Blood Work'', ''The Scarecrow'', ''The Drop''.
* SequelHook: ''The Poet'' ends with the killer getting away, and sure enough The Poet returns in ''The Narrows''. ''The Fifth Witness'' ends with Mickey Haller deciding to run for DA, but this sequel hook is subverted in ''The Gods of Guilt'', which reveals that a scandal not only wrecked Haller's nascent political career but ruined his relationship with his family.
* ShotInTheAss: ''Angels Flight''. Not played for laughs one tiny little bit.
** Also in the backstory for ''Lost Light'', again not played for laughs.
* ShoutOut: In ''The Fifth Witness'' a producer muses that Matthew [=McConaughey=] would be good to play Mickey Haller in a movie. [=McConaughey=] actually did play Mickey Haller in the film ''Film/TheLincolnLawyer'', released that same year. [=McCounaghey=] was described as an alibi (one of several) by a suspect in ''9 Dragons''.
** More than one to TheFilmOfTheBook of ''Blood Work''. In ''The Narrows'' a character common to both books complains about how he was portrayed in the ''Blood Work'' movie.
** The title of ''The Black Box'' is a shout-out to the beginning of the Harry Bosch series, the first two novels of which were ''The Black Echo'' and ''The Black Ice''. Connelly begins the novel with a thank-you to readers for keeping Harry alive for 20 years and the story begins 20 years in the past, with the initial call-out for the cold case Harry investigates in the story.
* SignificantName: The original Hieronymus Bosch was a Dutch Renaissance painter known for nightmarish hellscapes. This connection is mentioned in several Harry Bosch novels and is explored at length in ''A Darkness More Than Night''
* SonOfAWhore: Harry Bosch. In ''The Last Coyote'', which is maybe the most depressing of the Harry Bosch novels, his investigation into his mother's murder reveals that his mother had found a prospective husband and was going to quit the life and reclaim Harry from reform school. All that was ruined when his mother's jealous roommate murdered her.
* StuffedIntoTheFridge: In ''The Scarecrow'', Jack [=McEvoy=] finds the corpse of the new hire lady reporter stuffed under his bed. In ''Chasing the Dime'', Pierce finally finds the body of the hooker he's been looking for, stuffed into a fridge. Both instances are attempts to frame the protagonists for the murder.
* SwitchingPOV: ''The Poet'' switches back and forth from Jack [=McEvoy=]'s first person narration of his investigation to a third-person POV from an evil pedophile character. Its {{sequel}}, ''The Narrows'', has a similar structure, switching periodically from Harry Bosch's first-person narration to a third-person telling of the Rachel Walling/Poet storyline.
** ''The Scarecrow'' features the same first-person hero, third-person murderer style.
** ''The Reversal'' switches back and forth between its two POV protagonists, Mickey Haller in the first person and Harry Bosch in the third person.. Similarly, ''A Darkness More Than Night'' switches back and forth between third-person protagonists Bosch and Terry [=McCaleb=].
** ''Void Moon'' switches between thief Cassie Black and Karch, the casino security guy who's after her.
** ''The Black Echo'' does this to the point of EarlyInstallmentWeirdness. This novel has four different POV--Bosch, a witness to a murder, Bosch's LAPD nemesis Irvin Irving, and the Internal Affairs cops that Irving sends after Bosch.
** An interesting example over several novels. All the Harry Bosch stories are told in third person, except for the two novels in which Bosch is retired from the LAPD and working as a private investigator, ''Lost Light'' and ''The Narrows''. Those are told by Bosch in the first person.
* TechnologyMarchesOn: Demonstrated and lampshaded by the Harry Bosch novels over a quarter century as Bosch ages in real time. In the early novels LAPD detectives are using pagers and typing out their reports on typewriters. In later novels Bosch is the last detective to still be using a typewriter, and he admits that he has to get his daughter to help him with computers.
* VanityLicensePlate: Mickey Haller's "IWALKEM".
* WallSlump:
** In ''Lost Light'', one of the bad guys does this after getting shot.
** In ''The Black Echo'', the bad guy's look of surprise as he does this helps lead Bosch to the solution.
* WhatTheHellHero: Rachel Walling delivers one to Bosch at the end of ''Echo Park''.
** Terry [=McCaleb=] does the same to Bosch at the end of ''A Darkness More Than Night''.
** Bosch finally gets to give one in ''The Drop'', to old partner Kizmin Rider, who has sold out to LAPD politics.


[[AC:The Black Echo]]
* BatmanGambit: [[spoiler:Eleanor Wish pulls one against the guys responsible for killing her brother. With mixed results.]]
* BankRobbery: Climaxes with one of these, as the bad guys attempt to rob a safe deposit building.
* FunWithAcronyms: '''H'''omicide '''I'''nformation '''T'''racking '''M'''anagement '''A'''utomated '''N'''etwork.
* HoldTheUnsolicitedIngredient: Inverted. Harry Bosch specifically orders a pizza with anchovies in order to unsettle a teenage witness that he is interrogating.
* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: The murder that starts the story is carefully staged to look like a heroin overdose. Harry Bosch is not fooled.


[[AC:The Black Ice]]
* DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou: Harry Bosch was born at a time society wouldn't allow fathers to acknowledge illegitimate children.
* PosthumousCharacter: The late J. Michael Haller appears in flashback.


[[AC:The Concrete Blonde]]
* EvilLawyerJoke: Before the opening statements of Harry Bosch's trial, the judge told the jurors what the attorneys say during those statements wasn't necessarily true since they're lawyers. The judge's accent even makes it sound like "lie-yers".
* {{Flashback}}: Or DistantPrologue--the story starts out with a prologue that recounts Bosch's fatal encounter with the Dollmaker, before a TimeSkip to the present where Bosch is being sued for that shooting.
* HelloAttorney: Honey Chandler, the sexy lawyer who's trying to ruin Harry Bosch's career.
* JackTheRipoff: Bosch is puzzled when The Dollmaker, a serial killer that Bosch shot, seems to have become active again. He wonders if he got the wrong man. It turns out this new serial killer is a copycat.


[[AC:The Last Coyote]]
* FunetikAksent: How Connelly renders a Southern radio preacher.
* TheShrink: Bosch has therapy sessions with Dr. Carmen Hinojos.
* TapOnTheHead: Averted. Bosch has a concussion and is pretty messed up after getting whacked on the head.


[[AC:Trunk Music]]
* ChekhovsGunman: Powers, the beat cop who discovered the body in the first scene, is thereafter forgotten about, until Bosch figures out that he is the murderer.
* TheInfiltration: One of Bosch's suspects turns out to be doing this, much to Harry's embarrassment.
* TheMafia: The only Connelly novel which involves the Mafia as bad guys.
* WhoWatchesTheWatchmen: Alluded to in a rather silly exchange. Internal Affairs hatchet man John Chastain tells Bosch that he (Chastain) polices the police, leading Bosch to parry with "Who polices the police who police the police?".
* YouCanLeaveYourHatOn: Several scenes in a Las Vegas strip club.


[[AC:A Darkness More Than Night]]
* OminousOwl: The killer leaves owls as tokens.


[[AC:City of Bones]]
* AbusiveParents: Played with. We find out towards the end that [[spoiler:it was the ''sister'', not the father, who was abusing the long-dead child murder victim.]]
* ButNowIMustGo: Bosch at the end, burnt out by police work. By the next book, he's regretting it.
* DisposableWoman: Julia Brasher exists, and is killed off, to give Bosch something to feel bad about.
* TastesLikeFeet
--> '''Edgar''': This Church of Nature tea tastes like piss water.
--> '''Bosch''': How would you know what piss water tastes like?


[[AC:Lost Light]]
* EvilCripple: Turns out that the murderer is the (now) quadriplegic cop.


[[AC:The Narrows]]
* BattleInTheRain: Climaxes when Harry Bosch fights The Poet in a pouring rainstorm.
* DownLADrain: The setting for the climax. The Poet is swept away and drowned in a flooded LA storm drain.
* PosthumousCharacter: Terry [=McCaleb=], where one of the mysteries is how he died.
* {{Sequel}}: To ''The Poet''. While all of Connelly's books are in the same universe, this is the only one where a villain returns.


[[AC:The Closers]]
* MuggingTheMonster: Two homeless men attempt this on Bosch. One of them sees the look in Harry's eyes and backs down before it can end very badly.
* TeacherStudentRomance: One of these, with a very dark ending, turns out to be the solution.


[[AC:Echo Park]]
* {{Retirony}}: Pratt, Bosch's supervisor, has three weeks before retirement, as is mentioned every time his name comes up. [[spoiler:And it's all a RedHerring, as he's not a victim, he's complicit in the concealment of one, which leads to two cops getting shot. Harry is more than a little pissed when he finds out, especially since Pratt's machinations led him to accuse other people.]]


[[AC:The Overlook]]
* AdaptationExpansion: Expanded into a novel after originally being serialized in ''The New York Times Magazine''.


[[AC:9 Dragons]]
* ThePlotReaper: Eleanor Wish needs to die so Harry can take custody of their daughter.
* TheTriadsAndTheTongs: Harry gets involved with them after his daughter is kidnapped in Hong Kong.


[[AC:The Reversal]]
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Jason Jessup's [[AmoralAttorney defense attorney]] complained to the judge about the prosecution only releasing part of the data they intend to use against Jessup. Prosecutor Margaret [=McPherson=] (nicknamed Maggie [=McFierce=]) replied they were still within the deadline and suggested the defender believed no good deed should go unpunished.
* SuicideByCop: The titular reversal deals with a murder suspect whose conviction is overturned. After it becomes apparent that he is going to be convicted again, said suspect commits Suicide By Cop rather than go back to prison.
* TheUnreveal: Bosch develops a theory that murder suspect Jason Jessup is actually a SerialKiller, but we never find out if Bosch is right.


[[AC:The Drop]]
* CelebrityParadox: Bosch's daughter mentions that she's watching ''Series/{{Castle}}''. One must wonder if in the Bosch universe there's still a writer named Michael Connelly who Castle has a regular poker game with, and who his most famous creation is.
* TwoLinesNoWaiting: Bosch investigates two cases: the apparent suicide of former LAPD Chief Irvin Irving's son, and a cold case murder that comes back with a very surprising DNA hit. The two cases never intersect with each other.


[[AC:The Black Box]]
* FunWithAcronyms: '''C'''ommunity '''R'''esources '''A'''gainst '''S'''treet '''H'''oodlums.
* MissingWhiteWomanSyndrome: This is [[DiscussedTrope discussed]] more than once in regards to the victim, a white lady reporter killed during the 1992 Rodney King riots. LAPD does not want to give the impression that they are driven by the Syndrome.
* MoeGreeneSpecial: The victim is shot right through her right eye.


[[AC:The Brass Verdict]]
* JuryAndWitnessTampering: One of the jurors is an impostor, paid by the accused to assume the identity of a juror in order to have at least one guaranteed Not Guilty vote.
* YouJustToldMe: Mickey Haller uncovers information in this way.


[[AC:The Fifth Witness]]
* DropTheHammer: The murder weapon, used to cave a banker's head in.
* EurekaMoment: Lisa Trammel gives a child a balloon at a party, and Haller instantly figures out how she managed to strike a much taller man in the top of the head with a hammer--the victim was looking up, at a balloon.
* HeelFaceTurn: Mickey Haller's decision to turn away from criminal defense work and run for District Attorney is portrayed as this.
* NiceJobFixingItVillain: Lisa Trammel would have gotten away clean after two murders--but she just had to taunt her lawyer.
* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: Mickey Haller receives one.


[[AC:The Gods of Guilt]]
* DownerBeginning: The opening reveals that a client who Haller got off of a drunk driving rap then proceeded to kill a mother and daughter in another drunk driving accident. This destroyed Haller's campaign for District Attorney and permanently estranged him from his wife and daughter.
* EveryCarIsAPinto: [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] and [[SubvertedTrope subverted]]. A GoodSamaritan helps Mick out of his crashed Lincoln after he gets [[CarFu run off the road]], noting that he smells gas leaking and citing the risk of the car catching fire/blowing up. It doesn't.
* KnowsAGuyWhoKnowsAGuy: Cisco says he knows "some people who know some people".
* ScrewPolitenessImASenior: David "Legal" Siegel. "As he had aged, Legal had lost most of the social filters normally employed in polite company."



[[AC:The Poet]]
* AloneWithThePsycho: Climaxes with Jack [=McEvoy=] trapped alone with the titular killer.
* BookEnds: The first and last chapters begin with the same sentence--"Death is my beat."
* FairPlayWhodunnit: [[http://home.comcast.net/~dwtaylor1/nerowolfenovel.html Won an award.]]



[[AC:Void Moon]]
* AirVentPassageway: Thief Cassie Black uses this to get into a hotel room.
** Subverted towards the end of the novel however as the casino learned its lesson and added bars to the vents.
* ClassyCatBurglar: Cassie largely fits this role.
* LukeYouAreMyFather: Karch imports this information to the man he is murdering.
* OneLastJob: Both the backstory and the present-day heist. Cassie Black was going to run away with her lover after the big score in the backstory; in the present day she wants to get away with her daughter.


[[AC:Chasing the Dime]]
* {{Nanomachines}}: This is what Henry Pierce is trying to make.


[[AC:The Scarecrow]]
* EverythingIsOnline: Carver uses his all-access Internet pass (he's head of security at a server farm) to really screw with Jack [=McEvoy=].
* TelevisionGeography: [=McEvoy=] drives Highway 50, "The Loneliest Road in America", from Las Vegas to Ely, Nevada. Unfortunately Highway 50 does not go to Las Vegas; it is the east-west road that one would take from Carson City to Ely. From Las Vegas one would take the north-south road, Highway 93 (just as lonely, but without a colorful nickname), to Ely.

[[AC:The Burning Room]]
* HuntingAccident: Bosch discovers in his investigation that Broussard, the BigBad, once eliminated one of his {{Mooks}} via a Hunting Accident.
* MythologyGag: Soto asks Bosch if he's ever been to Calexico before, and Bosch said yes, he once went there looking for his partner. Bosch tells her "In fact, it would probably fill a book." It did fill a book, ''The Black Ice''.
* TheObiWan: Bosch, who is well into his sixties and facing mandatory retirement within the year, is partnered up with 27-year-old Lucia Soto. He decides to pass on to her as much of his wisdom and detective knowledge as he can.

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