Harry Bosch…
A while ago, as I was reviewing a book for Bookpleasures.com, something struck me. I was noting how the author’s style reminded of Michael Connelly’s early work, in particular the Harry Bosch books. The first, The Black Echo, came out in 1992, and I remember being impressed. And then I thought: Bosch is like my Detective Castilblanco! Not the same, of course, but similar. Harry was a tunnel rat in Vietnam; Castilblanco was a SEAL who had many missions in the Middle East, Afghanistan in particular. They both became detectives in big cities, Bosch in LA, Castilblanco in NYC.
I had to analyze this a bit further to put myself at ease. Had I inadvertently copied Connelly?
At the end, I decided there was no problem. After peeking inside some of those early Bosch novels again, I decided that the only things the Castilblanco books have in common with the Bosch books are those similar backgrounds of the detectives and their grittiness. Moreover, Harry is always local (at least in the Bosch books I read—I maybe read half of them), while Castilblanco’s cases usually start in NYC but often expand to national and international ones. Also, I’ve only reached #7 with Castilblanco, while Connelly is up to #19, last count. Still, eleven Bosch books were out before I published my first novel, Full Medical (2006), and that was a dystopian sci-fi thriller, not a mystery/thriller. I didn’t write the first Castilblanco book, The Midas Bomb, until after the stock market crash in 2007-2008.
Harry doesn’t have the help of a partner like Castilblanco’s Dao-Ming Chen either. He has to do it all alone most of the time (he does get a little too close to an FBI agent). But both Bosch and Castilblanco are loose cannons sometimes, giving their superiors a tough time. That’s probably true of most innovative and successful cops who are detectives.
Bosch isn’t a hard-boiled detective like Sam Spade and Mike Hammer either; more of those old detectives is found in Castilblanco. My writing owes more to that old school than Connelly’s does—for Bosch, gritty, yes; hard-boiled, no. I call my prose minimalist writing, and it’s prevalent even in my sci-fi tales.
Does any of this matter? Of course not! Crime novels with their mystery, suspense, and thrills all have some similarities, but as long as they’re exciting, intriguing, and entertaining, who cares? I’m addicted to them, in both my reading and writing. And who knows? Maybe my Chen and Castilblanco stories influenced Michael Connelly? Nah, not likely. And I’m sure he doesn’t give a damn that I didn’t read his later Bosch books…for reasons I won’t go into here.
Yet this is a warning to all authors who are avid readers: Check every once and a while to see if your writing too closely mimics some other author’s. A little bit is okay, but even that can kill your own unique voice. I’ve always strived to maintain mine. Modesty aside, it’s not Asimov’s nor Connelly’s, just Steve Moore’s.
After all, you can like both Bosch and Castilblanco. Nothing wrong with that! (Seems like we need a detective whose name starts with A there.)
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Comments are welcome.
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