Crime Beat: A Decade of Covering Cops and Killers

Written by Michael Connelly

Narrated by Len Cariou, Nancy McKeon and Carl Franklyn

Before Michael Connelly became a novelist, he was a crime reporter, covering the detectives who worked the homicide beat. In these vivid, hard-hitting pieces, Connelly leads the reader past the yellow police tape as he follows the investigators, the victims, their families and friends--and of, course, the killers--to tell the real stories of murder and its aftermath.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hachette Audio
• Release date: May 8, 2006
• ISBN: 9781594835155

Michael Connelly

Michael Connelly nación en Filadelfia y estudió periodismo. La afición compulsiva por la novela negra y la admiracion por los autores que cultivaron este género en Los Angeles lo llevaron a trasladarse a esa ciudad. Los diez años que dedicó al periodismo de sucesos en el Los Angeles Times le sirvieron para aprender los mecanismos del trabajo policial.La invención de Harry Bosch dio origen a la serie formada por El eco negro (premio Edgar de 1993), Hielo negro y La rubia de hormigón. Para escribir la cuarta novela de Bosch, El último coyote, Connelly abandonó el periodismo y se dedicó a la literatura a tiempo completo. Connelly es autor, además, de El poeta, Pasaje al paraíso, El vuelo del ángel, Luna funesta, Deuda de sangre, Más oscuro que la noche, Llamada perdida y Ciudad de huesos. Las novelas de Michael Connelly han recibido los premios Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, Nero Wolfe (Estados Unidos); Grand Prix, .38 Caliber (Francia) y Maltese Falcon (Japón).

Reviews for Crime Beat

[buffalogr · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I wanted to like this book. I truly enjoy Connelly's Bosch and Lincoln Lawyer series but this was so poorly edited it was unreadable. It was a series of 5-10 minute vignettes extracted from his experience as a crime reporter in Florida and California. It just does not work as a listen--the stories run together and after awhile; don't make much sense and can't be separated....chop....chop....chop....chop. What am I reading now? So, I gave up and did not finish.

[alanteder · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Connelly Non-Fiction 1984-1992
Review of the Little, Brown & Co. hardcover (2006)

Crime Beat collects a selection of writer Michael Connelly's crime reporting for the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel and the Los Angeles Times from the time before he began a successful crime fiction writing career with the release of The Black Echo - Harry Bosch #1 (1992).

The book is organized by themes such as Cops, Killers, and Cases, rather than chronologically. It conveys how Connelly was always building a human & character story into his straight crime writing, which is the feature that has continued into his fiction writing. I did not notice any particular inspiration for the later Harry Bosch novels, except for a case that was slightly similar to Trunk Music - Harry Bosch #5 (1997).

[gac53 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not the kind of book I normally read for pleasure. While interesting and memory provoking (if you're old enough) but just isn't a style I enjoy.

[karenduff · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found this book really enjoyable, it was a quick read and I couldn't put it down. This is the first book I've read by Michael Connelly and I look forward to reading more. If is fiction writing is as good as his reporting then his books should be very enjoyable, at least I hope so as I have a lot of them waiting to be read.

[skinglist · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I wanted to love this. I love Connelly's Bosch and Lincoln Lawyer series but this was so poorly edited it was unreadable.
By reprinting multiple articles on the same case he was repeating the same facts over and over. There's a good story to be told in the background of his novels - some of which I recognized - but it needs a narrative that isn't found here.

I didn't finish the book

[bellafoxx · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Michael Connelly was a reporter before he was a novelist. This book is a collection of the articles he wrote, some for the Florida paper he worked for and some from Los Angeles. The first article he talks about how he became a reporter and what he learned that helped him when he started writing fiction. I have not read any of his novels, I’m sure they are very good. I am of the opinion that reporters write the best books. There are of course exceptions. Having read this book, I am sure I would enjoy his novels.

The thing to remember is these are newspaper articles and that is how they read, this is not like reading a story or something meant to be published in a book. That being said they are all very interesting. The book is divided into 3 sections: Cops, Killers, and Cases. He was allowed to ride around with the detectives, and to spend time in the squad room, this gave him insight into the personalities and coping mechanisms of police officers.

I would recommend this book to true crime fans.

[mahallett · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

i liked this but i seem to be part of a minority.

[theoclarke · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A disappointing collection of newspaper articles that offer fewer insights into Connelly's mind than do his novels. He can write. Boy, can he write. But these stories need to be seen in their context and without the immediacy of newsprint or a continuing character I could engage with them.

[samsattler · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

"Crime Beat: A Decade of Covering Cops and Killers" is one of those books that work much better in theory than it does in execution. It is based on what seems to be the rather clever idea of reprinting the newspaper articles Michael Connelly wrote as a young crime beat reporter in order to illustrate how he morphed into the respected crime fiction writer he is today. Not surprisingly, Connelly carried away more from his reporting days than just a few plot ideas he could use later in his novels. He also developed his writing skills and, most importantly, his observational skills. The capability to see below the surface of the individuals he reported on (cops and killers, alike) that he picked up as a young reporter is what enables Connelly to create some of the most memorable characters in modern crime fiction.

As Connelly puts it in the book's introduction:

"There could not have been the novelist without there first being the reporter on the crime beat. I could not write about my fictional detective Harry Bosch without having written about the real detectives first. I could not create my killers without having talked to a few of the real ones first."

"Crime Beat" features an interesting selection of newspaper articles written by Connelly during his crime beat days in Miami and Los Angeles. Based upon their emphasis, the articles are divided into three distinct sections: "The Cops," "The Killers," and "The Cases." Fans of Connelly's Harry Bosch novels will be quick to see a little of Harry in some of the detectives featured in the articles, as well as prototypes for the criminals with whom Harry does constant battle. They will perhaps even recognize some of the crimes described in the articles as being the springboards for some of the stories themselves.

All well and good - but the big problem with the book stems from the nature of the cases and articles featured. Many of these cases were of the spectacular variety, either because of the nature of the crimes themselves or because it took law enforcement officers so long to solve them. For those reasons, most of the featured crimes required Connelly to write an initial newspaper article and at least one or two follow-up articles, sometimes four or five of them. Since none of the articles appear to have been edited for inclusion in Crime Beat, that means that details of the crime, including details about the killers and victims, are repeated several times within the ten or fifteen pages dedicated to each event. A reader with even a minimum capacity for remembering details will quickly become bored, if not irritated, by all that repetition.

And that makes "Crime Beat" rather difficult to get through - I found myself skimming the pages of the articles to a degree I have seldom experienced before - and a bit disappointing because it does not work as well as it should have.

Rated at: 2.5

[kraaivrouw · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Unfortunately this book is not what it could have been.

It could have been a collection of Connelly's journalism with some reflections from the author tying the pieces to his creative process in writing crime fiction or his personal reflections on each piece from his current position as a talented writer of crime fiction. It wasn't. It was, instead, a recycled collection of newspaper clippings. The stories, once so current and maybe even flashy, are now pretty stale and shopworn - your basic crime beat writing with nothing really to set it apart from other crime beat writing aside from its author's eventual fame.

Don't bother.

[bridget770 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This was a case where I did not read the jacket closely enough and where I finished the book for no reason what-so-ever.

I do not read the newspaper, and this book was newspaper articles about various cases that Michael Connelly covered as a journalist before he became a best-selling fiction author. I'm sure that the articles were excellently written and told incredible stories. However, it's just not my cup of tea.

[tallydi · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Connelly's novels about Harry Bosch are among my all-time favorites. When I read this collection of some of Connelly's newspaper articles, I found bits and pieces that were already familiar because they were foundations for the novels. Very interesting to read.

[jmcclain19 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Collection of Connelly's pieces while working as a crime beat reporter. Interesting read for sure - but just don't expect any sort of new content or writing in this one. The entire book is simply reprinted articles already published in one of Connelly's newspaper gigs.

[mrtall_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I love Michael Connelly's Bosch novels, but this compendium of newspaper articles he wrote in the 80s and early 90s makes for a very disappointing book. If you're interested in the genesis of Connelly's craft, I guess this one's for you, but I wouldn't recommend it for the rest of us. There are several interesting cases/articles included, of course, but the problem is the relentless repetion. Whole series of articles on the same cases are included, one after another with seemingly no editing, so whole paragraphs of details are repeated ad infinitum. Most of the book reads like a rehash of old news.