How To Read Every Harry Bosch Book In Order

Harry Bosch is deservedly one of the most celebrated TV detectives of all time, thanks to his landmark Prime Video shows Bosch and Bosch: Legacy. With the latter series about to enter its final season, fans of the TV character who haven’t yet picked up a copy of one of Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch novels, on which Amazon’s Prime Video series are based, might well be wondering where to start. Without new Bosch episodes coming to streaming following the end of Bosch: Legacy after season 3, Connolly’s Bosch books are another way into the same world as the TV shows for first-time readers.

Michael Connelly is a prolific author, having written 40 novels (and counting) focusing on several crime genre heroes, including Harry Bosch and Lincoln Lawyer protagonist Mickey Haller. Bosch is by far Connelly’s most important literary character, as he features in over 30 of his novels, and is the main protagonist in 25. Not every book has been used to adapt Harry Bosch from page to screen, though, and Amazon’s Bosch plays around with the order of Connelly’s stories. There are, then, two ways to read every Harry Bosch book: in release order, and in chronological order according to the shows.

The Harry Bosch Books In Release Order

From The 1st Novel Released in 1992 To The Most Recent From 2024

It’s perhaps most straightforward to read Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch books as they were originally released. The order isn’t overly important, since all the novels are self-contained stories designed to stand on their own terms. However, there is an overarching developmental arc to Bosch’s character over the the course of the 25-book series.

#	Book Title	Year Released
1	The Black Echo	1992
2	The Black Ice	1993
3	The Concrete Blonde	1994
4	The Last Coyote	1995
5	Trunk Music	1997
6	Angels Flight	1999
7	A Darkness More Than Night	2001
8	City of Bones	2002
9	Lost Light	2003
10	The Narrows	2004
11	The Closers	2005
12	Echo Park	2006
13	The Overlook	2007
14	9 Dragons	2009
15	The Drop	2011
16	The Black Box	2012
17	The Burning Room	2014
18	The Crossing	2015
19	The Wrong Side of Goodbye	2016
20	Two Kinds of Truth	2017
21	Dark Sacred Night	2018
22	The Night Fire	2019
23	The Dark Hours	2021
24	Desert Star	2022
25	The Waiting	2024

Harry Bosch begins the novel series as a detective for the LAPD Hollywood Division, before retiring, becoming a private investigator, coming out of retirement to serve in two LAPD special units, and then retiring once more, after a brief spell as a criminal defense investigator. In the latest Bosch novels, Harry Bosch serves as a mentor of sorts to Detective Renée Ballard, as well as his own daughter Maddie Bosch.

Connelly is still writing his crime novels, and we can expect him to add to the 25 Bosch books that have been published so far. First-time readers may well still be working their way through the novels already out there by the time Connelly has finished his next one.

The Harry Bosch Books In Chronological Order According To The Bosch Shows

Bosch And Bosch: Legacy Adapt Multiple Books Per Season In A Different Order From Their Release Dates

There’s no exact chronology to the Harry Bosch novel series, although reading them in order of release date follows the general trajectory of his career as a detective. On the other hand, those who want to go work their way through Connelly’s Bosch books like episodes of Bosch and Bosch: Legacy, following the chronology of events season by season, will find their reading order quite different from the release order of the novel series.

Each season of Bosch has incorporated the plot of between one and three Bosch novels into its plot, while Bosch: Legacy uses one to two novels as the basis for each of its seasons. One of Connelly's novels, The Last Coyote, is used as source material for the plot of two different seasons of Bosch, and another, The Wrong Side of Goodbye, was adapted in both seasons 1 and 2 of Bosch: Legacy.

TV Season	Book Title (Release #)
Bosch season 1	City of Bones (8)
	Echo Park (12)
	The Concrete Blonde (3)
Bosch season 2	The Drop (15)
	Trunk Music (5)
	The Last Coyote (4)*
Bosch season 3	The Black Echo (1)
Bosch season 3	A Darkness More Than Night (7)
Bosch season 4	Angels Flight (6)
	9 Dragons (14)
	The Last Coyote (4)*
Bosch season 5	Two Kinds of Truth (20)
Bosch season 6	The Overlook (13)
Bosch season 6	Dark Sacred Night (20)
Bosch season 7	The Burning Room (17)

Bosch: Legacy season 1	The Wrong Side of Goodbye (19)*
Bosch: Legacy season 1	The Night Fire (22)
Bosch: Legacy season 2	The Wrong Side of Goodbye (19)*
Bosch: Legacy season 2	The Crossing (18)
Bosch: Legacy season 3	Desert Star (24)
*Books adapted in more than one season

Seven of Michael Connolly’s Harry Bosch books haven’t been used at all as the basis for the plot of either Bosch or Bosch: Legacy. The Black Ice, Lost Light, The Narrows, The Closers, The Black Box, The Dark Hours, and The Waiting remain unadapted by Amazon MGM Studios, although they do own the TV rights for these novels as well as the rights for those they have used.

How Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch Books Connect To His Mickey Haller Series

Harry Bosch And Mickey Haller Are Half-Brothers

Given that Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller both work with criminal cases, it’s natural that there’s some overlap between the type of work the two characters do in their respective novel series. In fact, Bosch and Haller exist in the same universe, as is demonstrated by Haller’s appearance in three novels in the Bosch series: 9 Dragons, The Crossing, and The Night Fire. What’s more, Michael Connelly includes Harry Bosch in some way in all seven of the books he’s written for his Mickey Haller novel series so far.

In The Brass Verdict, the novel on which The Lincoln Lawyer season 1 is based, Haller and Bosch meet for the first time, and realize they’re half-brothers. There are three further Mickey Haller novels in which Harry Bosch plays a substantial role, one of which, The Law of Innocence, is currently being adapted for the fourth season of Netflix’s show about Haller. Bosch will be missing as an investigator from The Lincoln Lawyer season 4, however, as Amazon has an exclusive license to adapt the character for video media.

All 9 Seasons Of Bosch & Bosch: Legacy Ranked Worst To Best

Bosch and Bosch: Legacy have both been remarkably consistent in terms of writing and acting, but some story lines still stand out from the rest.

Posts

Those who want to understand what role he would have played in the season can check out Connelly’s source material. Otherwise, there’s more Bosch coming up on Prime Video, along with the 25 books featuring Harry Bosch as the central hero.