Author Michael Connelly (The Lincoln Lawyer, Bosch) shared his thoughts on Los Angeles and how the wildfires will impact his writing.

“The Lincoln Lawyer” and “Bosch” creator Michael Connelly had been in Los Angeles when the devastating wildfires broke out. A journalist by training before he brought that perspective to his novels and their subsequent television series adaptations, Connelly wrote his monthly newsletter to his readers to offer his thoughts on the event.

Image: CBS Sunday Morning Screencap (Bosch/The Lincoln Lawyer Author Michael Connelly)

Bosch, The Lincoln Lawyer Creator Michael Connelly’s Letter

Los Angeles is Connelly’s home, and Harry Bosch, his half-brother Mickey “The Lincoln Lawyer” Haller are natives of the city with Renée Ballard a transplant from Hawaii who’s moved there in her adult years to begin her career in law enforcement. Connelly wrote his observations and thoughts as an Angeleno in the newsletter sent to subscribers:

“It’s hard to express what I am feeling but I feel I should express something. It’s just hard to come up with the words. Los Angeles has always had its ups and downs, from devastating earthquakes, fires, floods, mudslides, even riots. It is part of the bargain in living here. You trade immense beauty and opportunity for the possibility of calamity. But when the calamity comes, this place has always been resilient. It has always bounced back. I think that is one of the things I love about the place and why I write about it. This latest catastrophe raises the bar for sure. There is no one in this place who has not been hit by the devastation – either directly through life or property loss, or indirectly through the psychological hit of seeing the place you love burning and seemingly in chaos. You don’t have to be directly touched by the flames to not feel burned in some way. But I know we will bounce back.

I know so many people who have lost everything, who don’t know where to go, or what to do. Or what comes next. As I write this there are red flag warnings all over the place in regard to the winds picking up again. We may not be finished with this. But we will bounce back.You can’t say anything about this disaster without mentioning the fearless work of the first responders and their efforts to combat mother nature. I watch the water-bearing helicopters fly over my house every day. Whether in the air or on the ground, they are heroes through and through. They inspire us. Already the outreach from the community to those who have lost from those who have not is growing exponentially. We are already bouncing back.

I write very contemporary novels. They are usually set in the year they are published. Last month I began work on a novel to be published in the fall. I set it in this month, with the start of the new year coinciding with a new challenge faced by the Lincoln lawyer, Mickey Haller. Now I must start over and rebuild the story to include what has happened here in the last week. I don’t want to be exploitive or merely put it in as background. I have to find a way to make it mean something in the story and maybe to the people who read it in the fall.

Meantime, the greater question I grapple with is what this means. Is this the new new? Will we need to face the possibility of nature turning against us again and again in these extreme ways? Are we now to pay the price for building a city in a desert so long ago? I have no answers. But I think that whatever happens, we’ll be ready and committed. I still love L.A. We always bounce back.” – Michael Connelly, January 13, 2025

This Year’s Lincoln Lawyer Novel Will Chronicle the LA Fire

As he said, Connelly has no intention of exploiting the event. His Bosch and Ballard and “The Lincoln Lawyer” novels have always been set in the present to reflect the social events of that period, including the Pandemic during those years, and this year’s “The Lincoln Lawyer” book will be no different. Connelly’s novels have been social documents of Los Angeles since the 1990s and the Los Angeles Fire is the biggest event to affect the city in decades. The new “The Lincoln Lawyer” book will be a social document of this January. You could say that every movie and TV show shot in Los Angeles prior to January this year is now a social record of what the city looked like before the fires.