Michael Connelly talks about 2 new Bosch spinoff series, 1 new book

Good news abounds for Michael Connelly’s fans, especially those around Tampa Bay.

One bit of news that emerged earlier this month surprised the bestselling author himself. “It was one of those things — it got leaked somehow,” Connelly said via Zoom from his Los Angeles home.

He was talking about two new, as yet untitled Amazon TV projects in development, one a spinoff from the hit series “Bosch,” based on his novels about Harry Bosch, an LAPD detective, and the other based on his books about another detective, Renée Ballard, with whom Harry sometimes teams up.

A tweet from Deadline on Feb. 7 broke the news of the spinoff. Connelly said, “That forced Amazon to put out a statement earlier than they usually do. Usually they do it when we’re further along and it’s more of a sure thing.”

The spinoff would be the second after “Bosch: Legacy,” which stars Titus Welliver as the title character. The new series would focus on Bosch’s partner in the original Amazon series, Jerry Edgar, who was played by Jamie Hector. It would move the character from L.A. to Miami’s Little Haiti for an undercover FBI mission.

Connelly says he knows Hector is “excited” about the show, but, he says, “I don’t know if technically he’s signed on. There’s no show without him, but I don’t know what deals are done.”

Hector, he says, “is of Haitian descent, so the story is really perfect for him. It’s centered in Little Haiti, but it would spread to a lot of South Florida.”

Connelly, who has a home in Tampa, says, “The most exciting thing to me is the possibility of making a show in Florida.”

The other show in development would center on Ballard, who has appeared in five of Connelly’s books but has not yet been a character on the Bosch TV shows.

He says that he thinks his 2022 novel, “Desert Star,” which teamed Ballard and Bosch, might have been the impetus for a series based on her. “‘Desert Star’ has this version of Ballard where she’s off the night beat, putting together this group of I don’t want to say misfits, but this kind of ragtag group of volunteers” to work cold cases.

In the earlier Ballard books, she worked the midnight shift, he says. “If you translate that visually, you’d have a very dark show. There’s a lot more blue sky in ‘Desert Star,’ and I think that’s what finally got something going on Ballard, this new look at her.”

As for who might play Ballard, Connelly says, “There has not even been a discussion of casting yet. We’ve got to get a script first.”

He hopes that in the new shows, as in his novels, characters from them and from “Bosch: Legacy” will interact. “All these shows would cross over, and that’s an exciting thing. The possibility of having these kind of characters cross into each other’s shows is kind of the overall plan.” (The exception is “The Lincoln Lawyer,” because it’s a Netflix series.)

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For the first three TV series based on his books — “Bosch,” “Bosch: Legacy” and “The Lincoln Lawyer” — Connelly has been very involved with almost every aspect. Although he’s an executive producer of the new ones, he says he’ll have a little more distance.

“I’m 66, so even though there’s news about these shows, I’m not as hands-on. I was involved with picking the showrunners, and I think we have some good ones.”

“Bosch” completed its seven-season run on Amazon Prime, but Connelly is still hands-on with “Bosch: Legacy” on Amazon Freevee and “The Lincoln Lawyer.”

During the Feb. 10 interview, Connelly said the new season of “Bosch: Legacy” is “completely wrapped today. Production is done and locked.”

Shooting continues for “The Lincoln Lawyer,” he said.

Neither new season has a drop date yet, Connelly says, although “Bosch: Legacy” is likely to premiere in the fall.

One other TV project he was involved in, a series for ABC called “Avalon,” won’t be on the fall schedule. With David E. Kelley as showrunner, it was based on a short story Connelly wrote that wasn’t part of the Bosch universe.

“After we shot the pilot, ABC tested it and decided not to go forward with it,” he says. “It’s not 100% dead; we might take it somewhere else.”

He does have another project that will debut in the fall: his next book.

This will be the 39th novel from Connelly, who was recently named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America.

“Resurrection Walk” will feature Bosch’s half brother Mickey Haller, aka the Lincoln Lawyer.

“This book is like seeded in ‘Desert Star,’” Connelly says. “Mickey Haller is in that book for a phone call, and the new book plays off of that.”

He wants readers to know that Bosch will play a significant role, too. “I think a lot of people out there thought that (’Desert Star’) was the last Bosch book for some reason, and I wanted to reassure people I’m putting him in the next book.

“Hopefully he’s still around while I’m around.”

Fans can look for “Resurrection Walk” to be published on Nov. 7. And — spoiler alert! — Connelly’s readers in the Tampa Bay area can see him talk about it in person when he headlines the Tampa Bay Times Festival of Reading at the Palladium in St. Petersburg on Nov. 11.