Crime Beat

This is an okay book written by Michael Connelly. Before he became a novelist, Connelly was a crime reporter, covering the detectives who worked the homicide beat. In these articles, 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. Connelly’s firsthand observations would lend inspiration to his novels. And the vital details of his best-known characters, both heroes and villains, would get their realism from the cops and killers he reported on: from loner detective Harry Bosch to the manipulative serial killer the Poet.